


ScrubLord

by Ezlebe



Series: .tv/FirstOrder [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Twitch Streamer, Anxiety, Awkward Flirting, First Kiss, Hospitals, M/M, Misunderstandings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-05
Updated: 2016-05-22
Packaged: 2018-06-06 11:35:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 21,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6752383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ezlebe/pseuds/Ezlebe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“What is with you people and that shit?” Kylo says, his voice becoming little more than a growl of static through the vocoder. “It's practically voyeuristic.” </p><p>Right. Kylo’s viewers are all a bunch of tactless morons that Kylo won't bother to control. Hux thinks that he might be able to stage an accidental disconnection on their Skype conversation, but Kylo would probably just turn on his mic to the Xbox party and… </p><p>Hux will just deal with it. He can suffer a bit of second-hand embarrassment. Or first hand - it's become a bit of a thin line.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Hux takes deep breath, nodding to himself and then pulling open the door. The cheery welcome bell nearly makes him flinch, but he determinedly keeps walking, forcing his feet to pick up and carry him to the front of the lobby.

“Hux,” he says, staring at the ghastly poster of a happy family on the wall behind the receptionist.

“Sorry, could you repeat that?”

“Aldous Hux,” he repeats, forcing himself to look a few centimeters to the left and trying not to wince at their disarmingly white smile. “I have a 1:30 appointment. A cleaning.”

“Alright, Aldous, you can take a seat,” the receptionist says, typing a few strokes into the computer and then leaning backward for a manila folder. “Dr. Daala will be with you soon.”

Hux turns on his heel and scans his eyes across the crowded lobby, finding a lone, empty seat between an octogenarian and an end-table stacked with dusty magazines. He exhales shortly, digging his nails into his palms, and then forces himself to sit in the uncomfortable waiting chair, shoving away the urge to march back out the door.

He blames the facecam. If he had just never, ever started using the facecam, then he wouldn’t feel the need to make sure his teeth are cleaned and his pores clear. He could have languished into a slovenly mess, and none would be the wiser.

He would not have to return here every six months to listen to this demon of a dentist tell him he doesn’t floss enough, which he fucking does; that he shouldn’t be drinking so much caffeine, which is essentially his fuel; or that he should look into improving his diet, which is not remotely her concern. She is not even a _real_ doctor.

Hux huffs, rolling his eyes to the side until they catch the date on one of the magazines – June 2005 – and raises an incredulous brow. He resists only for a few moments, then reaches out and snatches it, wondering what horrors he will find in a decade-old Men’s Vogue.

The magazine is well-used, pages thin with years of lazy thumbing through, and he flips through it slowly, shaking his head slightly at the wealth of half-buttoned dress shirts and Henleys. Apparently, exposed collarbones and slips of chest muscle were very popular. He won’t say he disagrees with the allure, especially with all the models being perfectly toned, or at least airbrushed that way, but it is very repetitive.

He flicks the page lazily only to stumble upon an advertisement that nearly has him slapping the entire thing closed: a glistening half-naked man resisting the chained leash of a whispy redhead. Hux honestly has no clue what they could be advertising, only that he suddenly feels terribly exposed looking at this in the middle of a dentist’s office.

He curls the pages inward as he tries to hide the image from the woman at his left, and lets his eyes dart completely around the image in a hasty need to find the product. They wouldn’t just print this casually, would they? Although, it’s Vogue, and Hux admittedly knows very little about fashion aside from preferring it to be black, and he – Ah, it’s cologne, or maybe perfume. He can see the scant impression of glue on the edge, near the man’s very, very muscular arm.

Hux turns the page… Almost. He finds himself frowning at the image for a few seconds longer, fully aware that at least half of it is because of the attraction, but there is also a distinct peculiarity about this model.

He looks a little bit like Ezra Miller, if with more standout ears, but Hux is fairly certain he would have been about twelve in 2005, so not nearly old enough. He just looks so familiar, especially with that aggravated pout…

Oh _no_.

No, Hux must be going _insane_ to even entertain the idea.

Hux glances to the side, eyes scanning to the dates on the other magazines. Frustratingly, the next nearest one is a Nylon from 2006, and he has no idea if it features the same type of material.

He sighs, looking back down at the Vogue.

It's not as if he can just _ask_ Ren without evidence, because he definitely would've mentioned an errant modeling career had he been proud of it. Hux closes his eyes for a long moment, silently in disbelief of himself, then begins to painstakingly tear the advertisement from the binding. If it isn’t Ren, then it could be embarrassing, but the rewards outweigh the consequences if he’s not imagining the likeness, and even if Ren initially replies negatively, then Hux will threaten to email his mother’s office before feeling a fool.

What was Organa doing in 2005, anyway? Hux has no idea what she was before Secretary, but it was probably some sort of other representative… A Senator, maybe? Either way, a (maybe) indecent modeling, video-game obsessed son could not have been good PR.

Hux realizes that he has an onlooker a few seconds too late, glancing up and catching the neighboring woman’s skeptical expression. He stares back, eyes flitting down to the picture of the half-naked man on a leash that he’s torn out of a magazine from ten years ago.

“I am coworkers with this man,” Hux says, attempting to keep his voice as disinterested as physically possible. “We make videos on the internet. I thought he might like to see how far he’s come.”

Her penciled-on eyebrows go higher, and she even tips her head forward to narrow her eyes in a silent admonishment before her wrinkled fingers return to Candy Crush.

Wonderful. It is so, _so_ much worse now. He made it sound like he’s a porn star.

~

Ren still has his private stream up when Hux gets back to the apartments, nursing sore gums and irritated at the slick of his teeth, so he waits to accost Ren with the stolen advertisement. He pulls it out of his pocket, gently unfolding it, and studies the model’s face for a long few moments, just to confirm with himself.

Hux may have suffered that old woman’s rebuke, but he’ll never see her again; he has to face Ren every day.

Fortunately, the picture still looks like Ren, albeit with a much more angular face. Most of the moles are gone, but that could be attributed to airbrushing, because the one just next to his nose is definitely in the right place. He even has that familiar petulant look of contempt aimed sideways at his leash holder.

Hux should probably be more concerned with how charmed he is with the image, a risqué cologne ad, but it’s not as if Ren has to know – Hux is perfectly allowed to think whatever he would like and about whoever strikes his fancy, especially if it's a decade old.

Perhaps he shouldn’t confront Ren. He would probably tear the page up the moment he saw it, with how reactionary he can be at the smallest thing.

Hux sighs low, then pulls out his phone, realizing too late this is what he should’ve done to begin with, and carefully flattens out the image until there are no reflections when he takes the picture. It isn’t the same, but he can already hear Ren winding down the stream, so time is short.

“You need to get your lock fixed, Organa, I'm not the only one in the building,” Hux says, turning around just as Ren enters the living room. He’s still wearing that stupid mask, and only tips it up rather than taking it off when he grabs a biscuit out of a box left on the counter. “Are you still streaming?”

“No,” Ren says, turning around and looking like an uncomfortable, if demented, Spider-Man. The only visible part of his face is that mouth, and his nose looks terribly pinched. “I was supposed to end it a half hour ago, anyway.”

“Take that thing off,” Hux says, grabbing the page as he stands to walk toward the breakfast bar.

“Why?”

Hux resists the urge to roll his eyes, “I want to see your face when I ask you about this, obviously.”

“I thought you went to the dentist?” Ren says, lifting a hand and pulling the mask off with a single, painful looking wrench; it is really not meant to come off that way. His eyes linger on Hux’s hands, obviously confused at the connection.

“Well, it turns out that in addition to being the devil, Daala has trouble keeping up with modern fashion,” Hux says, laying out the image on the cool granite. He is rather proud of himself for managing not to so much as snicker at the surprised, then horrified expression stretching across Ren’s face.

Ren reaches out with unsurprising reflex to grab the ad, but Hux manages to beat him to it, pulling the page back to his chest with an affected scowl. He will not have Ren destroying such wonderful, physical evidence to hold over him.

“Where did you get that?” Ren snaps, his voice only slightly unstable as he begins to breathe heavily out of his nose.

“A magazine, clearly,” Hux says, smoothing out the image again before folding it back into quarters. “I was wondering why I’d never heard about it.”

“You don’t know that’s me.”

“Well, I’ll admit I wasn’t sure until you had that little outburst, but I definitely know now,” Hux says, slipping the ad back into his pocket; safe and sound, and just next to his wallet.

“It could be Ezra Miller,” Ren says, eyes following his hands down to the pocket before abruptly darting erratically around the room. “People say we look alike.”

“Yes, I know,” Hux says, rolling his eyes. After all, he is the one forced to read the same YouTube and Twitter comments every time someone sees Ren’s face for the first time. “But he’s much younger than you.”

He had also checked that on the way back, just in case; it is very difficult to tell actors’ ages these days.

“Not that much younger,” Ren says, expression threatening to twist into a pout.

“Why did you quit? I’m certain you made just as much money, if not more,” Hux says, raising an eyebrow and bluffing completely; he has no idea how much a model makes, but it’s probably less than either of them make on Twitch. He gestures down Ren’s front, “Could you no longer keep up with the training schedule? Much easier to just lay about all day.”

“No – Not that,” Ren says, his eyes pinching oddly as he grumbles out a weak comeback, “You are fucking rude, Hux.”

Hux raises an eyebrow, huffing slightly, “Is it really rude if it’s true?”

Ren snarls, then begins pulling at the arms of his giant jumper, struggling for long enough that Hux has time to wonder what he’s up to and the summarily realize it, with time left over. He stays skeptical right up to the moment that the shirt underneath gets flung into a corner, because that is when his mind officially goes offline.

Hux blinks for a few, slow seconds, and has to resist the mad urge to check the ad to confirm that the Ren in this apartment is possible _more_ built, despite the fact that the ad definitely employed a heavy amount of Photoshop.

Ren – right now, in front of Hux – looks better than Photoshop.

“Ah,” Hux says, after a few more moments of staring. He is officially more embarrassed now than he was after realizing that an elderly woman might think he was a porn star. He may even, at this very moment, only slightly, wish they _were_ porn stars. “I am not apologizing. You sit in front of a computer all day, so I have honestly no idea how this is even possible.”

“I work out when I can’t sleep,” Ren says, hunching over slightly and making the muscles in his shoulders bulge just this side of enticing. He shrugs tightly, one hand coming up to scratch at the opposite elbow, “We go to the gym upstairs at the same time, a lot. I didn’t… I thought maybe you just didn’t want me to interrupt you, not that you hadn’t noticed me at all.”

Hux does run, most nights, but he usually blocks everything out and stares at the lights on the other end of the city. It had never occurred to him that someone might notice him, let alone _Ren_.

“I do like my solitude,” Hux says, lifting his chin slightly and making a mental note to watch the reflections in the window the next few nights. He glances to the sleeveless shirt crumpled in the corner, then quickly looks back; he won’t to let his mind wander into the territory of imagining what Ren might wear.

Ren is nothing more than a terrible neighbor and a barely-satisfactory streaming partner, even if he does apparently have lovely arms underneath all those layers.

“Put your shirt back on,” Hux says, rolling his eyes with forced exasperation as he points directly at it. He needs to get his mind back on work before he gives in to the obvious way Ren seems to be waiting for something. “We need to plan out the next week. I was thinking we finish Halo and perhaps take a vote on a horror game for Halloween.”

“You know, the dentist left your teeth bloody,” Ren says, practically hissing as he shoves past Hux with an oddly pinched scowl. The anger is sudden, but not surprising. “You look like a zombie.”

Hux frowns, but refuses make a move that might look like he is checking. He would have tasted it before now, or at the very least have gotten weirder looks leaving the dentist.

“I quit because it sucked,” Ren says, his voice barely a mutter as he shakes the shirt out before pulling it on. It makes his back stretch wide and then narrow, every muscle discernible under his skin. “I liked the clothes. Not everyone staring at me.”

Hux raises an eyebrow in surprise, then lets his eyes glance down to the shirt. “I take it that ratty top isn’t from Wal-Mart, then.”

“It’s Thamanyah,” Ren says, his expression folding into an inappropriate mix of horror and revulsion. He is acting as if Hux implied it was made of human skin. 

“Good Lord, Ren,” Hux says, biting back a derisive scoff. He has absolutely no clue what that means, but it sounds like it’s code for expensive. “No one can even see it under that jumper.”

“The sweater is last season’s Alexander McQueen,” Ren says, bending to pick it up and then holding it out. He waves it a little when Hux does little more than stare. “It’s soft. Touch it.”

“Ren, no,” Hux says, speaking very, very slowly, and with a strange urge to back away. He is suddenly worried he committed felony theft by stealing that jumper months ago. “I literally do not care.”

Ren drops his hand, letting what is doubtlessly hundreds of dollars sweep against the floor. His mouth pinches into a hard frown, and he nods once, decisively, “We should go shopping.”

Hux feels like he has been swallowed by some wormhole into another place; a universe where Ren Organa cares about _clothes_. He slowly shakes his head, “No. We are going to finish Halo.”

“You don’t even know your measurements, do you?” Ren says, glancing down Hux’s front and tilting his head. “Other than like, small.”

Hux decides they’re going to restart and play LASO. They’re going to play LASO because Ren hates it, since he dies every ten seconds, even if it will doubtlessly end with the purchase of a new controller and no achievements. Ironically, they will both probably make a couple thousand dollars out of it; their viewers _love_ when Ren gets angry.

~

“So who thinks Hux’s hoodies make him look cold and sad?” Kylo says, punching an elite in the back and then crouch jumping into a small space between cliff walls.

Hux allows himself a few moments to be offended, then lifts his head and glares sideways at the wall separating their apartments, wondering how hard he would have to think before Kylo just spontaneously had an aneurism. He miscalculated far to the left how Kylo would get him back for mocking about the failed modeling career.

“General, Skateisdead thinks it makes you look like the addict from Breaking Bad, while Anitabey says you’d be cute in a waistcoat,” Kylo says, tilting his head and staring at the Skype window.  “What do you think of – ? Ah, and Deergod says you should wear more pink, like the Little Mermaid.”

“I think you should be wary of history repeating itself,” Hux says lowly, glancing to the side and catching a few bemused responses in his chat. A few of his watchers catch on very quickly that he is talking to Kylo, but others seem to think he’s just gone philosophical on a pair of gossiping grunts.

The conversation is lost behind the predictable, yet somehow still sudden arrival of a new wave of enemies, and Hux tries to forget the insult to his attire and lesser so to his actual figure. Not everyone can be built like truck through little more than insomnia and temper-powered weight-lifting.

“Oh,” Kylo says, his response a few long minutes later, voice lilting with realization even through the vocoder.  “ _That_.”

“Yes,” Hux says, swallowing a burst of troublesome amusement that threatens to escape. He lowers his voice, “Careful, now.”

He glances to the side, habitually catching the chat. The bulk of it seems now to be purple Twitch hearts, which firmly straddles the harassment moderator line, either that or Unamo is being lazy. He officially regrets it already, giving in to some ill-advised urge to _almost_ flirt, and can only imagine what sort of innuendo is currently flooding Twitter outside this carefully moderated chat, only knows that it is highly unlikely to be regarding homicide. He wonders if there will be more fan art.

 “What is with you people and that shit?” Kylo says, his voice becoming little more than a growl of static through the vocoder. “It's practically voyeuristic.”

Right. Kylo’s viewers are all a bunch of tactless morons that Kylo won't bother to control. Hux thinks that he might be able to stage an accidental disconnection on their Skype conversation, but Kylo would probably just turn on his mic to the Xbox party and…

Hux will just deal with it. He can suffer a bit of second-hand embarrassment. Or first hand; it's become a bit of a thin line.

“We’re not fucking, and we’re not cute,” Kylo snaps, getting angry for the first time during the stream, if for entirely the wrong reasons. The hunters haven't even shown up – Hux really wishes they would for pure distraction, but he knows they won't for another two waves.

Hux skips ahead on the map, rounding behind a rock and going for a turret. He won't use it yet, but it's good for a vantage point, to catch any wandering jackals and pretend he doesn't care about what Kylo's saying or what's going on in the chat. A few of the viewers are watching both, which is an insane drain on bandwidth, and it's a terrible privilege Hux suddenly wishes wasn't allowed because it lets the rest of his viewers know that Kylo's going off on something and how it's definitely not the game.

“No, it’s not _ever_ going to happen,” Kylo says, his chair audibly creaking when he begins that fussy, angry rocking like a toddler. “Right, Hux?”

“Clearly,” Hux says, drawing not from his present state of mind, so much as some old, innate instinct to speak with condescension at the very smallest sign of discomfort. He doesn't appreciate the ugly twist, low in his gut, at such a slight implication of rejection – he's not even interested in Kylo. Or Ren. “Why don’t you stop being a defensive twat and return to the game, Kylo. I doubt anyone truly believes I’d lower myself to a relationship with you.”

The chat dissolves into a flood of emojis and onomatopoeia, too sudden and incomprehensible to really do anything about except sigh heavily, mourning his tenuous power over hundreds of strangers. A few morons send messages inquiring if Kylo and he ‘broke up’, but the majority seem to just take the chance to act like a sadistic crowd being tempted with drama.

Kylo is silent for a few moments, noise only broken by the dull sound of children’s laughter as Hux shoots a pair of grunts, then he abruptly laughs, the noise grating and vaguely menacing through the vocoder. “No, I imagine not.”

The dismissal actually seems to make Kylo finally return to the game, though the mood is markedly odd when he barely makes a peep after Hux gets killed by an invisible elite three seconds into the next part of the level. The sudden reticence is suspicious, and terribly discomfiting, but there's only so much Hux can do if Ren has decided to fall into a sulk, even if it gets particularly awkward in the chat when Ren doesn't make his usual comments regarding, utterly false, resemblances between Hux and Guilty Spark.

Hux does get a lot of pity tips from a few of the more insightful viewers, though, which is a boon. A few leave unsubtle, awkward comments regarding acceptance in the gaming community, but otherwise it's largely a good night, even if only for his checkbook.

~

A loud _something_ disturbs Hux from his half-asleep editing fugue, and he wakes with a deep breath to stare narrowly at the wall right in front of his face, wincing as he hears another sound: a now familiar impact of something large against a wall. He blinks away the remaining film from his eyes and stares at the clock in the corner of his screen, groaning at the image of 4:13AM, then gently slumps until his forehead is cradled in his palms.

He hadn’t even noticed when his music stopped playing, and now he’s paying for it.

It’s the first real tantrum Ren has had since Hux found out he was Kylo, and for some insane reason he thought that maybe they’d die down. He doesn’t know why, really – perhaps it had been simple wishful thinking. He could go over there now, with the backing of years of putting up with it from across an internet connection, but he finds with some shame that the idea is slightly intimidating. His encounters with Ren’s more violent proclivities have always been over a screen. He’s seen Ren twist a controller into pieces because of a puzzle game.

Hux exhales, glancing at the door for a long moment before he shifts his wrist a little and clicks the Skype icon. He is just trying this first, and if Ren doesn’t answer, then Hux will stand up and act like an adult about it.

He calls twice, just in case, and imagines he can hear the soft jingle being ignored on the other side of the wall. Another noise comes, loud and strong enough that Hux finds himself hastily rolling from the wall, as if Ren had the strength to destroy a foot of plaster and wood, and maybe a little steel. He sighs as he gets up, ignoring the pitchy, cowardly voice squeaking in the back of his mind that's urging him to go to his room on the other side of the apartment, to find a pillow and cover his ears, but he’s not going to put up with this anymore. He’s thirty, not twelve, he can confront this without being a cowering little child. Ren isn't _that_ big, and he's certainly all bark.

Hux forces his breath to settle when he pulls open the door to the hallway, idly thinking about how this is the second time in as many months he's visited Ren’s apartment in the middle of the night. He knocks sharply, cracking his knuckles against the surface, and steps back just as the door swings open.

He vaguely thinks Ren might have said something cruel as greeting, but only registers the hard smack of his door against the opposing wall – a harsh, horrible crack of a noise – and doesn’t realize he’s retreated to the other side of the hall until he feels the smooth surface of the wall underneath his fingers and back. He glances up in time to witness a visible look of shock appear on Ren’s face, the wrath there quickly melting into something more slack and stunned as he gapes at Hux.

“Hux?” Ren says, an unfamiliar emotion pinching at the corner of his eyes. His shoulders hunch inward as he brings one hand up to run through his dark hair, suddenly looking bizarrely small. “Did the door hit you, or… Or something? Did I hurt you?”

Hux swallows, balling up his hands at his sides. He can still feel his heart beating up against his ribs, the adrenaline making his breath shutter and his entire body shake. He should never have tried to come over here, now Ren's seen him weak and cowardly at nothing. He closes his eyes for a short moment and wills his breathing to slow down by a few measures. He tries to remember his exercises, turning his involuntary reactions into voluntary, but he's out of practice, and it takes far longer than it should to draw breaths at an even pace.

Ren is blessedly silent for most of the procedure, and when Hux glances up he looks… He's got a bright smear of blood on his forehead, near his scalp. Hux debates little before hastily stepping forward, needing to get a better look; he doesn't know how Ren could have got his head bloodied, but none of it's good.

“Hux – I’m – I…” Ren says, eyes wide and chest heaving with obvious emotion. He doesn’t seem to be aware of his own injury, a hand suddenly gesturing in an odd spin at his front. “I’m sorry. For all of it. Well, mostly just right now, but – ”

“You’ve got blood, you fool,” Hux says, hoping desperately that the trembling goes unnoticed as he reaches up and brushes the sticky hair from the front of Ren's forehead, grimacing at a few sparkling shards that fall out against his fingers. He frowns at the unbroken skin there, rubbing a little urgently at the red stain, “What, where is — ah. _Oh_.”

Ren’s right hand is hanging at his side, a few pieces of large glass in the knuckles, and a steady drip of blood trailing down two of his fingers. Hux follows the trajectory as a few drops fall and splash onto the white floor, then reaches out, grabbing Ren’s wrist and pulling it up to get a better look.

Hux has something to focus on now, to shove back at the scuttling thoughts trying to beat their way into the forefront of his mind. Never has such a large amount of blood been this much of a relief.

“You didn’t break anything important, did you?” Hux asks, glancing up to catch Ren’s wide eyes and hoping it wasn’t a monitor or a television, or, at worst case, a window. He would probably stay miserable for days before fixing it, and complaining the entire time as if he hadn’t done it.

“Mirror,” Ren says, looking down and away, staring at the doorjamb as if it has some sort of answer. “Bathroom.”

“Ah,” Hux intones, gently straightening Ren’s knuckles and easily seeing the thin reflection in the shards. The shatter of it was probably what woke him. “How unfortunate.”

Ren’s hand is certainly in a state, with more than a few shards being larger than coins and seeping blood across his knuckles and onto the hall floor. It really shouldn’t be this bad – it should have simply shattered against the wall and rebounded back, not curled around his fingers and scraped nearly to the wrist.

“It was a medicine cabinet,” Ren mutters, giving a good impression at reading Hux’s mind.

“You may need to go to A&E,” Hux says, letting Ren’s hand drop and then pausing to stare at the blood seeping into the cracks of his own palm. He’d only been holding it for a moment, “Right now, Ren.”

“It's not that bad,” Ren says, lifting his hand, and wincing as he curls his fingers in and out. A new surge of blood beads up against the glass and flows across his knuckles, “I think.”

Hux narrows his eyes, reaching out and pressing his palm against Ren's chest, then pushing, “Go. Now.”

“Are you really going to make me go alone?”

“Well,” Hux says, quickly going through his mental rota of the time, how exhausted he is, oh, and the fact Ren is a _grown man_. “Yes.”

“They make you fill out paperwork,” Ren says, glancing down at his hand and then lifting it as if Hux had already forgotten about it. “This is my right hand.”

~

“You realize your hands are literally where you make your money, correct?” Hux says, muttering under his breath, glancing at the other patients as he anxiously rolls the flimsy copy of Ren’s admittance papers in his hands. He has learned far too much about Kylo lately, and the least of what he needed was medical emergency information – he doesn’t need this to be the start of a pattern. “ _Our_ money. Phasma’s money. How do you expect to get head shots without the continued use of your fingers?”

“It just happened, alright,” Ren snaps, voice lifting out of the sulky murmur into a veritable bark that startles a red-faced, wheezing woman in a far chair. “I don’t fucking plan what happens when I get mad.”

Hux rolls his eyes, scoffing, “You’re not the bleeding Hulk.”

“I don't need to be the Hulk to snap you like the twig,” Ren says, glancing up with a glint of his eyes against the bright, waiting room lights. He would be far more intimidating if his mouth wasn’t turned down in a pained grimace.

“Are you really threatening the man who drove you to the hospital?” Hux says, unsurprised but no less angry for it. “In the middle of the night – “

“You barely sleep anyway.”

“Illegally, I might add,” Hux continues, ignoring the interruption as he turns to face Ren, brandishing the paper in his face like a lank weapon. “And now knows all of your medical information?”

Ren falls silent, lips tilting into a sullen frown. He slumps into his chair, looking away and grumbling under his breath, “Not _all_ of it.”

“Enough,” Hux says, turning back to stare at the number above the reception desk. Ren is two numbers away, has been deemed ‘semi-urgent’, and Hux officially loathes everything about America. For all he knows, the NHS may have a similar policy regarding walk-ins, but he’s not being forced to deal with it right now.

“You seem really tense.”

“I’d prefer irritated,” Hux says, scraping his teeth along his lip and narrowing his eyes when the woman two rows down get called. “On your behalf, which is an entirely new sort.”

“I’m glad I can make you feel new things,” Ren says, his tone lilting firmly into some sort of ill-timed taunting, elbow markedly drifting onto Hux’s armrest.

Hux scoffs, glancing sideways and emphasizing an offense that he barely feels, “Seriously?”

“Sorry,” Ren says, curling his lips together over his teeth. He slumps down in his chair, until his legs practically form a barrier to the opposing row, muttering, “Not really.”

“I can easily bump you up to an urgent, Ren.”

Ren huffs under his breath, laying his head out flat against the back of his chair, staring at the ceiling for a long moment before his eyes shift to the side and bore into Hux. “How would you even do that? You’re a stick-bug.”

“Well,” Hux says, baring an icy smile as he tilts his head to look more fully at Ren, then reaching behind and grabbing a conveniently mundane weapon. He spins it between his fingers, and clicks the end, “I found this pen on the table right next to me, so why don’t you keep trying your luck.”

Ren blinks at the pen, then shifts his eyes back to Hux’s face with a quirked brow. “I still can’t tell when you’re joking.”

“I believe I’d have to be joking to begin with,” Hux says, clicking the end again and enjoying the faint twitch of Ren’s shoulders.

“872?” the nurse at reception calls, a short ding accompanying her words. “Ben Organa-Solo?”

Ren scowls, a short whine emerging from the back of his throat, “I can’t believe you wrote that.”

“It’s your name, you child,” Hux says, pulling at the shoulder of Ren’s shirt and forcing him up. It would be just like him to refuse care because of something so arbitrary. “I think the government knows.”

“Whatever, you’re not supposed to,” Ren says, sighing heavily through his nose. “Fucking Wikipedia.”

“Just him,” the nurse calls, flashing a tight smile and gesturing for Hux to stay when he makes a move to follow Ren. “Sorry.”

“Well, alright,” Hux says, slowly sinking back into the uncomfortable seat. He watches Ren’s back disappear behind the door, and firmly ignores the sudden awareness of the rest of the clinic, inspiring the rapid beat of his heart underneath his ribs. He exhales slowly, busying his hands with absently folding the paper, turning it into smaller and smaller triangles until it refuses to bend any further under his fingers. He unfolds it similarly careful, then repeats the action on the opposite side, then the other, until the paper is little more than a web of valleys.

He blinks when a pair of sensibly adorned feet step in front of his eye line, and glances up to find the nurse from reception staring at him with a soft smile. “Hi, could I speak to you?”

“Of course,” Hux says, slowly standing and shoving the half-folded sheet into his back pocket. If Ren gets irritated at the state of it, then it’s his own fault for trusting Hux with sensitive information.

“Hi,” the nurse says, when they’re sequestered in a quiet corner just behind reception. “I just wanted to make sure – “

“You had better not be postponing his care any longer,” Hux says, flexing his jaw and drawing his shoulders in tight. He shouldn't be short with them, he knows, but it's nearly 6AM and they kept a man bleeding on their floor for a half hour. “He should've been seen to right away.” 

The nurse blinks at him, smile shrinking just slightly, “We need to confirm he’s not on anything.”

“He wrote – I wrote down his prescriptions on that admittance sheet,” Hux snaps, reaching up and running a hand through his hair. “Have you already lost it?”

“No, sir,” the nurse says, exhaling slowly and nodding in a decidedly odd manner. They seem to be trying to attempt some sort of commiseration, but Hux refuses to have any of it – he wants Ren bandaged up, and to go home. “But… We wanted to confirm as a precaution, and for the safety of yourself, that when we release him, you won’t be in any continuing danger.”

Hux stares, and feels something tighten hard in his stomach when they glance pointedly downward. He slowly reaches up to pull his hoodie further up his chest. “It wasn’t from him.”

“We’re here to help,” the nurse says slowly, voice in that soft, gentle tone.

“The scar is old,” Hux says, feeling his jaw tense even as he speaks, trying to keep him from opening his mouth. “Far before I met him.”

“Oh,” the nurse intones, eyes darting down to his chest and obviously coming, once again, to the wrong conclusions. “My apologies, sir. You have to understand, considering Mr Organa's medical history and the obvious source of his wound, plus your – Well...”

Hux narrows his eyes, “My what?”

“You’ve been anxious, sir,” the nurse says, lowering their voice further even as they stare straight up into Hux’s eyes. “It’s upsetting the other patients.”

“Ah,” Hux says, feeling his hands curl at his sides, his mouth twisting downward with discomfort. He's been upsetting patients, by being upset, in a _hospital_. “How inconvenient that must be for you.”

The nurse narrows their eyes, just slightly, almost as if they can parse out some further meaning than the obvious. They straighten their posture and glance sideways, then exhale slowly, “Alright. Fine.”

Hux raises an eyebrow, suspicious that they might be deciding not to believe him. He worries suddenly that they might try a different sort of tactic, pamphlets and things that other people may need, but certainly not him.

“We don’t usually do this,” the nurse says, reaching up and gently grabbing at Hux’s elbow, grip warm, firm, and completely unwarranted, then pulling him toward the back where Ren had disappeared. “But I think they’ll let it go this once.”

Hux finds himself shoved into a small room, a baffled Ren sitting on an examining bed with his bloody hand sitting in a towel. It seems he still hasn’t been seen by a doctor, despite being hidden away in here for over ten minutes.

“I thought you couldn’t come back here?”

“I was _upsetting_ the other patients,” Hux says, reaching up and pulling at his collar, only to stop himself and curl his hand into a fist. It seems that nurse has inspired a resurgence of an old habit, one that hopefully it won't take an additional three years to suppress for a second time.

Ren exhales, narrowing his eyes for a moment, “You gonna tell me what that means?”

“No,” Hux says, glancing sideways and catching sight of an uncomfortable looking chair hidden away behind the exam table. It seems the nurse may have been lying.

“Or,” Ren says, drawing out the word and lowering his voice to a mocking whisper. “You could.”

Hux scowls at him, pulling at the chair and trying to ignore the pitchy, scraping noise it makes against the linoleum. “I don’t like hospitals.”

“Sure,” Ren says, his voice going decidedly sarcastic and cynical. Undeniably defensive. “My bad.”

Hux sighs, ignoring the stupid little voice in his head reminding him that he’s not the only one with problems, and runs a hand through his hair. He's allowed to be angry. His life had been a comforting routine of streaming and sleeping, and occasional grocery shopping, until Ren moved in, then it was horrible noise in the middle of the night, the only time when it really bothers him, and now he's sitting with Kylo, a man who was meant to be on the other side of the country or something, in an emergency room. Also in the middle of the night, and now straight into the next morning.

He feels himself scratching at his scar far too late, and the oppressive, static of an impolite state an instant after.

“Just ask!” Hux snaps, lifting his head up and glaring at Ren, still able to practically feel his eyes. “I’m surprised it’s taken you this long. I’ve seen you staring even through the webcam.”

Ren rolls his eyes, drawing his teeth over his lip, “Where’d you get that?”

“A collision,” Hux says, balling his hands into fists over his knees. “Of sorts. The failure of a safety feature on a train.”

Ren raises his eyebrows, clearly taken aback. He had probably expected something else, something more personally violent, no better than that nurse. Hux knows what the scar looks like, a faint line down and around his neck to his chest, like a lazy noose, but Hux’s parents would have been forced to acknowledge he existed before they ever held the inclination for such abuse.

“I can usually handle the reaction to noise, but it was 4am, in the dark of the night,” Hux says, feeling the words emerge from his throat as if they’re coated in barbs. He doesn’t appreciate being forced to talk about it, his weakness to something so inconsequential and literally intangible, but otherwise Ren might keep thinking it was just his behavior, and he doesn’t deserve that sort of credit.

Ren expression twists up, disbelief prevalent in his eyes, “I think I would remember reading that.”

“It was few years before I was relevant,” Hux says, forcing his voice to edge out with sarcasm rather than irritation.

“So nothing to do with why you've got a weird schedule for everything?”

“No, you imbecile, I simply hold appreciation for routine,” Hux says, running a hand over his face and practically feeling the frustration seep through his pores - it may have something to with it, schedule being an explicit part of his recovery, but he's not going to say such a thing. “But it is why I dislike getting in small metal spaces, especially with _large men_ who make the entire thing shake every time they step in.”

“You could just take the fucking stairs,” Ren mutters, exhaling slowly and shifting his body on the exam table. He’s looking pale under the lights, but it’s probably more the fluorescent fixtures than blood loss. He sighs, leaning sideways on the table and glancing down at Hux with an odd expression, “I once stabbed my dad with a roasting fork.”

Hux narrows his eyes, a short curve of confusion pulling at the corner of his mouth; he hasn’t the slightest clue what a roasting fork is, nor how it is at all relevant to _his_ issues _._ He doubts it has anything to do with Ren bodily threatening to bring the lift down every time he gets in it.

“For marshmallows, hotdogs,” Ren says, seemingly picking up on Hux’s befuddlement in that regard, not so much the rest of his own tact. “That sort of thing – I was… drunk, a little. It didn’t really hurt him, and it… It was sort of a joke?”

“Ah,” Hux says, choosing to humor Ren for a few moments; he is running on little sleep at the early morning, and currently suffering _some_ blood loss.

“My little cousin took it… more seriously,” Ren says, and starts awkwardly pulling hard at the collar of his longsleeve with his uninjured left hand, motivation a mystery until he leans forward to reveals a long white scar along the collarbone that nearly goes straight into his neck.

“Good lord,” Hux says, curling his lips over his teeth. He hadn’t noticed it when Ren had stripped down earlier, which feels like an eternity ago, because he may or may not have been too distracted by more significant designs further south. He probably should have been paying better attention, but how was he to know they’d have this bizarre moment?

“It turned out my uncle did a really shit job explaining… my thing, before she met me the first time,” Ren says, letting his shirt tighten back into place. “It wasn’t really her fault.”

“He told her that you’d hurt someone because of mental illness,” Hux says, feeling his teeth grind of their own accord. “Delightful man.”

 Ren grimaces, mouth pinching hard enough that his lips completely blanch. “I thought I did.”

“Your father is fine,” Hux says, leaning against the edge of the exam table and trying to ignore the soft allure of sleep. “I assume. I'm certainly hoping he is now, for embarrassment’s sake.”

“He's in Algeria,” Ren says, shaking his head and lifting his injured hand a few inches before it falls back to his lap.  “I think. Or Morocco.”

Hux furrows his brow slightly, glancing sideways and narrowing his eyes at a piece of blank wall next to a giant poster of the human body. The Wikipedia article on Secretary Organa hadn’t mentioned a lot about Ren’s father, aside from him being something of a vagrant. “Africa?”

Ren makes an uncomfortable expression, clearly ducking the question before exhaling slowly and glancing to Hux, deliberately catching his eyes. “I wasn’t talking about him, anyway.”

Hux stares back, fuzzily remembering Ren’s pleas in the hall. “Ah.”

The door opens with a small click, and a doctor finally bumbles in from whatever excuse they have for increasing the likelihood of Ren contracting sepsis.

“Well, what have we got here…?” The doctor says, grabbing Ren’s file-folder from the counter and humming under their breath. They unfold it in their hands, clicking their tongue at something they find, then gently grabbing the towel and unwrapping it from Ren’s hand. “Oh, this looks nasty. I hope they let you sober up.”

Ren rolls his eyes, sharing a cross look with Hux, “I’m not drunk.”

~

Hux doesn't realize he's fallen asleep until he wakes up, head pressed against an uncomfortable pillow that he quickly realizes is Ren's thigh, and the weight of a large hand laying oddly around his shoulder. He should've woken the moment Ren touched him, especially there, but it seems even his anxiety is trying to escape the hospital in any way it can find.

“Just take care of those stitches,” the doctor says, and there’s a faint noise of rustling just to the left of Hux’s head. “I couldn't detect any tendon damage, and it's unlikely you would've been so wriggly, but just in case don't punch any more glass for a while. Maybe talk it out.”

Ren doesn't say anything.

“I know, I know,” the doctor says, a cajoling note in their voice. A small clink of something is heard, and then a chair rolling, “Not a lot of guys your size are into that, but if whatever you were fighting about was really that bad, would he have come with you? I doubt it.”

Ren exhales, the muscle of his thigh tensing beneath Hux’s head, “It wasn't him.”

“Hm?”

“I just couldn't look myself in the mirror.”

“Oh,” the doctor intones, falling silent for a few seconds. “That’s a little outside my purview.”

“Yeah,” Ren says, in little more than a huff of breath.

“Keep it clean, and the stitches should dissolve on their own in a few weeks,” the doctor says, just as a few sheets of paper are heard shuffling together. “If they bother you, come get them pulled. _Do not_ do it yourself.”

“Okay,” Ren says, and suddenly his hand shifts, ungently jostling Hux sideways and off of his leg. “Wake up. I want to go home.”

Hux makes a show of exhaling hard, reaching up to shove Ren’s hand away as he stretches his shoulders and opens his eyes against the bright light of the exam room. He glances at the doctor for a moment before looking down to Ren’s injured hand, finding it to be neatly wrapped at the knuckles with a thin layer of gauze, along with a few plasters around the fingers.

“Wasn’t that bad,” Ren says, turning his hand as if Hux could see through the bandage. “I can still play, too, as long as I don’t use the claw grip.”

“Playstation for the next week, then,” Hux mutters, ignoring the bizarre urge to reach out and draw a finger down Ren’s obscured knuckles. “You still haven’t played the Witness. Or Firewatch.”

“I don’t _want_ to play them,” Ren says, drawing his hand back to his chest with a peevish huff. “Glorified walking simulators. I don’t know why people keep requesting them.”

“I’m not certain about Firewatch,” Hux says, stretching his arms out in front of him and hearing his spine creak, “But I believe they know the Witness will make you furious.”

“Twelve stitches, but only a few flesh wounds,” the doctor says, interrupting to present, peculiarly enough, Hux with a piece of paper. “He got lucky.”

The sheet outlines a rough generalization of care for lacerations – how to clean them, how long the gauze needs to stay on, how long before the stitches dissolve – and Hux obediently reads every bullet before he glances up to Ren with a frown. “I’m not your mother.”

“I know,” Ren says, a short glimpse of a smirk appearing at the corner of his mouth. “She would’ve made me come alone.”

The drive back to the building is vaguely terrifying, half because this is the second time in as many years that Hux has driven at all, and half because its rush hour and he’s already paranoid enough – Ren doesn’t help, trying to forcibly turn the wheel into a McDonald's one moment, and in the next passing out asleep at a stoplight literally two minutes from the block. Hux is mildly grateful that he didn’t stubbornly try to make Ren drive back, even if he feels a little bit like he’s going to murder someone when a mini-van illegally passes him as he turns into the alley that leads to the resident parking.

He reaches over as he unbuckles and shoves Ren into the side of the window, enjoying the dull thunk of his forehead against the glass, and even waits until Ren is out before locking the doors. It would have been terrific to see Ren jump at the car alarm, but Hux can already feel a headache building and would rather not exacerbate it.

“If you don’t like elevators, how can you drive?” Ren asks, rubbing hard at his eyes and nearly shoving Hux right into a wall. “Or take the bus.”

It seemed to be accidental, but Hux hastens his pace until he’s a step ahead, “I’m not paralyzed by the idea, merely wary.”

“You put up with shit you don’t like?” Ren says, sounding surprised, maybe a little bothered, before it’s swallowed by a very audible yawn.

“Not generally,” Hux says, hoping it’s the lack of sleep making him so honest – the idea of making a confidant out of Ren is mildly disturbing. “Only if it pertains to daily function.”

Ren is quiet the few meters it takes to get to the entrance, and seems to be concentrating very hard on the ground when Hux gives in to the urge and turns around to make sure he's not passed out in the alley. He hopes Ren keeps it together until they get to their floor, because he's certainly not going catch Ren from making an ill-timed dive for the pavement. 

“Would it really be lowering yourself?” Ren asks, the question odd and sudden as he ungently shoves Hux through the door of the lobby. The security attendant gives them an odd look, eyes following and eyebrows raising, clearly puzzled at seeing Hux and Ren stumble in like drunks. “I’ve never seen you with anyone… If anything, it would be _highering_ yourself. A lot.”

It’s officially been over twenty-four hours since Hux has had any sort of real sleep, ill-timed nap notwithstanding, and he’s definitely not alert enough for this sort of snippy rapport. Ren has been awake at least as long, plus whatever mild pain sedative they put in him for the glass extraction, which adds up to Ren having no idea what he’s even saying.

Probably.

Regardless, Hux chooses to ignore him.

“I’m rich,” Ren says, “And tall.”

Hux curls his lips over his teeth, reluctantly amused at the absolutely mortifying mess that Ren is making of himself. It’s a little sad that the qualities Ren finds in himself to be the best are ones that Hux already possesses; he’s probably going to talk about his gamerscore next.

“And my – ” Ren pauses, leaning in close and practically draping himself over Hux like an obnoxious, living cloak. “My dick is like… _huge_.”

Hux barely registers his own elbow moving before he hears Ren yelping in his ear, the weight of him drawing off of Hux’s shoulders. He didn’t even hit Ren hard, is too exhausted to barely move the arm, let alone do any real damage, but of course, Ren must be dramatic about everything.

“Shut your mouth,” Hux says, mortified to realize that he can feel his cheeks practically glowing. “You’re embarrassing yourself.”

“I’m injured,” Ren mutters, curling his wrapped hand up to his chest. “You’re a dick.”

“You’re _talking_ about your dick,” Hux snaps, waiting before stepping into the lift, bracing himself as he turns around to face the door for the inevitable jolt when Ren steps in after him. “Have some decorum.”

Ren stares for a long moment, then his face folds like pale linen, “You sound like my mom.”

“Just get in the lift, Ren,” Hux says, reaching out and gently nudging the door back open when it begins to close between them.

“You said – “

“I don’t care,” Hux mutters, lifting hand and pressing the palm to his own forehead. “I’m exhausted. Please, just get in here.”

Ren makes a pinched face and walks in, almost like he’s trying to be delicate, but fails almost immediately when he trips with his over-large feet against the lip of the door. The lift jerks around them, cables creaking at the top, and Hux exhales slowly, forcefully insisting to his mind that he’s not actually in a tin can.

“Oh, god,” Ren murmurs, his voice an almost inaudible rasp. “I’m a giant ass.”

Hux raises a brow and glances sideways, eager to make his agreement, only to catch, with immediate panic, the terrible, puppy-eyed look upon Ren’s face as he stares down at the floor of the lift. He is undeniably pouting, mouth tight like he’s biting the inside of his lip and eyes curled like crescent moons, misty and – 

Hux feels some intrinsic part of him recoil when Ren lifts his hands and presses his face into them, back curving as he falls sideways into the wall of the lift. His breath is audibly hitching, enormous shoulders trembling, and Hux has an insane urge to try and stop the ascent at the current – 10th –  floor, because he needs to get out of here now. He might pass out climbing nineteen flights of stairs, but he wouldn't be trapped in here discovering this new and fun reason to never get in a lift.

Hux cannot handle crying; it’s wet and messy, and even watching it has him feel like a small, helpless child. It couldn’t have been more awkward if Ren had instead started masturbating.  

“Ren,” Hux says, his voice tight in his throat when the doors slide open, after the second longest two-and-a-half-minutes of his life. “We’re at our floor.”

Ren is quiet for another few moments, still sniffling, “Okay.”

Hux waits until the door nearly closes on them before hesitantly reaching out, grabbing the loose sleeve of Ren’s shirt at the elbow, and tugging, “Come along.”

Ren startles under his hand, peeking above his hands with damp, red-rimmed eyes, “Hux?”

Hux ignores him, pulling until Ren has followed him out in the hall and to the front of his door. He’s still breathing hard, a few tears fading as they streak down his face, but Hux desperately hopes most of it has past during the short time in the lift.

“I lied,” Ren rasps, his eyes puffy and red as he watches Hux twist at his door until the broken lock comes apart under just the right angle. “I want it to happen, but it’s not ever going to happen.”

“I’ve not the slightest what you’re on about,” Hux says, his exhausted mind having some trouble finding Ren’s bedroom. The floor plan is exactly the same, except completely opposite; it usually isn’t this confusing.

“You’re like the worst,” Ren says, voice reaching that despondent note that it had just before the lift outburst. “You’re also the best. It sucks.”

“I’m sure,” Hux says, shoving Ren sideways and into his entirely too-big, unmade bed. The whole of the room looks like it’s in a film from the thirties, black and white, and the only spot of color is the red DS sitting haphazardly on the night-stand.

“I wish you would just suck.”

Hux rolls his eyes, glancing up from where he’s straightening the DS out of some misplaced sense of responsibility. “That’s very – “

Ren’s eyes are hardly open, still damp and dark, but he seems to find energy as he reaches out with a hand, swiping a thumb against Hux’s bottom lip. “Fuck, I’ve thought about it so many times…”

Hux feels his entire face burst aflame, his chest tightening with something determinedly unacknowledged. It’s going to be very difficult to rationalize _that_ away as Ren being a half-asleep asshole. He reaches up and curls his fingers around Ren’s wrist, pushing the hand away and ignoring the way the heat stays like an ember against his lip. “Don’t.”

“Yeah,” Ren murmurs, glancing upward and catching Hux’s eyes. “Okay.”

Hux stares at Ren’s face for a long moment, from the short flutter of his lashes to the feeble trembling of his lips, and in his distraction overbalances when Ren tries to pull back his wrist, narrowly avoiding a chance to jab an elbow into Ren’s center. He realizes an instant too late that he’s perched over Ren, hand spread out flat against his broad chest.

Hux swallows a gasp when a scratchy, gauze-covered hand curls around the back of his neck, but forgets to bury the next one when his awkward frown firmly meets Ren’s lingering pout. He opens his mouth a moment later, with something like instinct but more akin to wishful thinking, and finds Ren responding in a way that is decidedly sloppy.

He’s not actually sure any of this is happening, but at least Ren seems to have completely stopped his crying.

Ren’s sparse stubble scratches along the edges of Hux’s similarly unkempt jaw as they drag against each other with little finesse. Hux weakly nips at that sinfully full cupids bow, lazily smirking when Ren whimpers quietly into the open seam of his lips.

Hux knows he should pull away, get up, and go home, but something about all the activity of the night, entirely of the wrong sort, has him rationalizing what a faultless idea it would be to stay forever in this very convenient bed. Ren certainly doesn’t seem to mind, swathed hand still loosely curled around Hux’s nape, and he even seems to be taking the blame for the idea by holding Hux down against his chest.

The justification is, undeniably, something of an exaggeration; everything about Ren, except the intent press of lips, is undeniably languid. Hux could probably get up and storm out of here in an entire false sense of offense, and the most that would happen is… Well, more tears, which Hux is belatedly realizing was probably a small part about him, considering the conversation in the lobby.

Oh.

Oh, for christ’s sake.

Hux shoves up, forcing his arms to obey the expenditure of energy and pulling away from Ren, who’s mouth settles in a decidedly petulant slant. He even lifts and tilts his chin, as if Hux moved away because of some bizarre sort of discomfort.

“Did you punch a mirror because of – of _this_?” Hux asks, speaking just above a murmur and hoping he seems no less angry for it. “Because I said I’d be _lowering_ myself – are you an imbecile?”

Ren blinks a few times, and the direction of his gaze shifts with every flicker of his eyelids. The closet, the window, the wall – seemingly anywhere else to avoid the attention of Hux.

Hux clumsily shifts his hands until both thumbs outline the edge of Ren’s jaw and force him to look forward, a parody of strangulation that threatens to devolve into reality. He frowns his hardest when Ren finally makes eye contact, “Do you have anything to say for yourself?”

“It worked out?”

“I am going to murder you, slowly,” Hux says, narrowing his eyes and leaning in close until his furrowed brow nearly presses right into Ren’s raised one. “Just like the unfortunate soul who lived here before you.”

“Knew it was you,” Ren mutters, pulling his head from Hux's loose hold and yawning against a pillow, hand slipping down to span practically across Hux’s lower back. His eyes are already shut. “Sleep.”

“I need to go home,” Hux says, thinking very hard about about getting up, but the overly soft sheets seem to be curling around him, singing lullabies against his skin. “I have to stream in four hours.”

“Don’t have your keys,” Ren says, his voice indolent and barely above a whisper.

“What?”

Ren hums, a hand dragging down and nudging at the edge of Hux’s very empty front pocket, somehow without any innuendo. “Forgot to grab them when we left.”

“And you didn’t…”  Hux closes his eyes out of exasperation, then neglects to remember to open them. “I cannot believe you.”

“I had to go to the hospital,” Ren says, shifting until Hux is less on top and more next to him, then shoving his crooked nose into the hollow of Hux’s shoulder. He seems to have conveniently forgotten all of his overactive, mirror-punching notions regarding Hux’s disinterest in favor of turning him into a teddy. “It was an emergency.”

“I hate you.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Even snubbing social media, you had to read some of those obscene YouTube comments about the vocoder,” Hux says, eagerly taking the upper hand as it’s practically presented to him, wrapped in a great big black and silver bow. “All the tweets people send… You’ve really never taken anyone up on it?”
> 
> “No,” Ren says, scoffing a few times under his breath like he’s trying to laugh, but just cannot bring himself to it. “No.”
> 
> Hux hums, feigning curiosity and wondering how long he can draw this out, only to reluctantly realize that he might not be entirely pretending to consider it – Ren’s own fault really, having only a mask as a face for years. “Shame.”

“I apologize for the lateness,” Hux says, after he's made the preliminary announcements and finally gone live, needlessly straightening his headphones as he glances sideways at the chat. “Yes, I know it's hardly unusual for Twitch, but it's really not professional.”

A few seconds more of steady, barely readable chat reveals that most viewers are far less angry than he anticipated, and a few actually outright worried, which is flattering. He’s been holding precise schedule for a few years now, and it's nice to have it noticed.

“I had some… unforeseen complications,” Hux says, resisting the childish urge to slump in his chair with a sigh. His waking to Ren curled against his side had been rather nice, then vaguely terrifying, until he realized that it was ten past one and he still didn't have his keys. “Nothing to worry about repeating.”

He presses **A** , determined to forget the morning, his lingering tiredness, and get firmly embroiled in his first game. He skirts a few questions from viewers trying to get a better explanation while absently completing the tutorial, but the introductory cutscene after is somehow a surprise and runs entirely too long, enough that he actually gives into the itching need to check his phone.

He sighs slightly at a few of Phasma’s messages, all demanding answers, and swipes them away with a low click of his tongue. She's the one who took a week’s holiday for visiting her family.

He pauses with his thumb over the latest from Ren, still the same as it was after Hux rushed out of his place, a short line of emoticons – broken hearts. Hux knows it's more of a joke than anything, but it's been nearly an hour and he’s got an unwarranted weight setting low behind his ribs.

He closes the screen without actually dismissing the message, looking back up just in time to catch an NPC getting impressively decapitated with an improbable application of machine gun fire. The chat has already moved on from invasive questions to encouraging various classes and customizations, a few simply spamming emojis of hats or sprites, and Hux forces himself to step into the game and the stream.

It's not as if Ren would expect him to answer a text in the middle of a broadcast.

The rest of the session continues with only a few interruptions, mostly irritated chat members popping in when they realized that Hux had actually been late rather than cancelled completely, but they’re quickly silenced by the others in a slightly cruel, only acceptable on the internet way that involves mostly awful insults. He even makes it through a bossfight before he realizes it is one, and subsequently gains some accidental repute as a real gamer™, which has no real-world value, or probably even _internet_ value, but makes him sit up a little straighter. 

The good mood rather shifts a few minutes after he ends the broadcast, when a familiar profile superimposes itself over his capture desktop with a mildly irritating series of blips. It seems Ren has again forgotten he can walk, or is implausibly feeling shy, but at this point Hux can only hope he isn’t wearing the mask. He sighs and clicks to answer, tapping his fingers against the desk.

“I want to do something,” Ren announces at the moment it connects, mouth set in a straight line and head tilted up as if he’s already preparing for a rebuff. It’s not a particularly unlikely outcome, but would it kill him to be polite for twelve seconds?

“Hello, Ren,” Hux says, crossing his arms against the top of his desk with a sigh. “Good afternoon. Yes, I’m feeling fine.”

Ren stares for a long moment, then rolls his eyes, “Do you want to hear it or not?”

“If you must,” Hux says, readying himself for, and feeling oddly welcome to, some vulgar manner of come-on similar to last night. He hadn’t expected Ren to be so blatant with full faculties, but at the same time he’s not particularly surprised – Ren is hardly the most subtle man on the planet.

Unless, of course, he’s hiding his identity like some sort of spy.

“It’s my fault,” Ren says, suddenly affecting a markedly self-effacing tone, which sets off metaphorical warning bells across the board – he hardly takes responsibility for anything. “Sort of, that your stream was late.”

“It is, completely,” Hux agrees slowly, hoping he sounds just as suspicious as he feels, though perhaps less wrong-footed. As a rule, this sort of conversation is instigated from the opposite end, but Hux wasn’t even planning to bring it up, not yet; it’d hardly be a useful fight at this time when he could use it far better as a later example.

“Right,” Ren says, tilting his head to the side and gesturing cyclically, his hand only appearing half in frame. “So I thought I could – “

“Let me stop you for a moment,” Hux interrupts, leaning back in his chair and pressing his lips together hard over his teeth as he realigns his expectations for this conversation. He ignores the resultant pang low in his chest and swallows hard, “You called to… to apologize. Is that what this is?”

“I don’t know about _apologize_ ,” Ren says, mouth quirking down in an obnoxious little moue. “But I was going to pay you back some of the money you lost. In a way. As good faith for First Order.”

Hux stares a long moment, the urge to say something swelling almost painfully inside his chest, but just as quickly shrinking. He might be far more comfortable with the idea of living quietly with his… appreciation for Ren, rather than suffering a more explicit dismissal. They’ve started something of a business venture together, along with Phasma, as Ren’s making an odd point to mention; it just wouldn’t be done to have it sour between them because of something so trivial.

Even if it makes him mildly... furious that Ren has apparently decided to change his mind. Admittedly, he had been half asleep, just suffered some odd emotional fit… Hux may have misread some existential angst as personal; Ren is over thirty and single, and incessantly overdramatic – he probably saw Hux's rejection as the world doing it, then the subsequent kiss later an acceptance.

Hux really should have realized it sooner - Ren wouldn't destroy half his home just because of _him_.

He stares at Ren's oddly eager face for another moment, then sighs, glancing away from the screen. “Okay.”

“Really?”

Hux shrugs, reaching out and straightening an out of place controller. “Why not.”

~

“I hate this part of the city,” Hux says, pulling his hoodie further around his shoulders, mouth pinching downward as a trio of residents with children stare at him sideways through almost pointless sunglasses. He's not sure what they could be judging him for, but it's certainly not in his favor, and a perfect example of why he’s already regretting agreeing to this out of little more than self-pity.

Ren glances in the same direction, wincing as he shoves his injured hand into a pocket, and the other still clutched around his keys. “I think you fit right in.”

“Don’t insult me,” Hux says, jaw tightening as he catches a passing pair of scarved hipsters across the small street smiling into their hands and intent on Ren, which irritates him for an entirely different reason. If he's not allowed to look, then no one is allowed to look. “The people in these neighborhoods are all selfish prats, living among their monied peers while ignoring the suffering of their neighboring communities. God forbid they use the influence of affluence to better lives.”

Ren huffs under his breath, lifting his hand and _almost_ touching Hux’s shoulder as he directs him toward a storefront that looks like its from the nineteenth century. “Fucking socialist.”

“Thank you,” Hux says, tilting his head up with an affected inhale. Moments later, he can actually feel the ego melt off him as the door closes behind them, watching the attendant give him one look, raise their carefully sculpted brows, and turn to Ren with a tight, judgmental smile. It seems that whatever goth chic rags _he_ wears are immediately recognizable as somehow better than Hux’s perfectly respectful outlet fare.

Ren does the service of ignoring them completely, immediately stepping past Hux and through mannequins in trendy sport suits, various hung and stacked knitwear, and to a large selection of jackets and trench coats at the back. It’s nearing the end of spring, making it very odd that there is so many, but the boutique itself seems to cater only to one season.

Hux glances sideways, reluctantly curious, and narrowly winces as he catches the price on a black, mid-length coat worn by a faceless torso. It had been rather attractive until he realized he could pay a month’s bills with that money. “Is the thread actually spun gold?”

Ren shrugs, pressing his hands against a few of the coats and looking at stiff, gold-leafed tags with an odd sort of urgency. “I’m paying for it.”

“I’m capable of paying,” Hux says, resisting the urge to glance backward at the observing attendant. They’ve approached and are now standing about three feet back from Ren, quiet as a church mouse, and a petty part of him wants to make sure _they’re_ perfectly aware. Admittedly, it would put his tightly reined finances in something of a mess, but he can pay.

“Don’t care,” Ren says, pulling out a black mid-length trench coat – a slighter, silver buttonholed version of the one Hux had been observing in the display.

“Ren.”

“They don't have the right size,” Ren says, practically grumbling and seemingly decided now to completely ignore Hux’s emerging misgivings, rather than trying to convince him otherwise. It makes Hux want to walk out all the more; the clothing in this place costs far more than what he may have lost in the broadcast. “It’ll be too big at the shoulder. You’re practically built like the models they use.”

The latter is said with an absent gesture toward an advert featuring a willowy brunet with an umbrella, their plush lips pouting at imaginary rain. Hux wonders if Ren's eyes are losing their keenness, “I’m not that slight.”

Ren actually scoffs, turning around completely to offer the coat with an oddly practiced looking twist to get it off the hanger. “Put it on.”

Hux stares at the coat. A small, irksome part of him appreciates that Ren seems to know what he likes, while the greater part is annoyed Ren didn’t even bother to defer to him. “You’re not going to ask if I approve?”

“You wear something like it in GTA,” Ren says, as if that is a legitimate explanation.  

“That is a _game_ , Ren,” Hux says, lifting his eyes from the black-buttoned manifestation of two grand, looking past it to give Ren a frown. “It’s not something I would wear in real life.”

“It could be?” Ren says, rolling his eyes and lifting the coat a little more in front of Hux’s face. “Just put it on.”

Hux clenches his teeth, glancing hastily back at the waiting attendant, before he quickly pulls at his hoodie to get it over his shoulders. He feels naked the moment that regulated air brushes against his back, and he shoves the hoodie at Ren as he grabs the coat at the same time.

It isn’t the worst thing he’s ever worn, settling over his shoulders in a manner that is light-weight but not weightless, and, even with the jeans, he doesn’t look the least bit ill-suited as he glances sideways in a mirror. He looks oddly important, actually, and squares his shoulders as he belts it at the middle and straightens the collar to cover his neck. He turns to catch Ren's eye and stops, raising an eyebrow at the unreadable look across that face, Ren’s tongue held just visibly between teeth, and feels a flush start crawling up his neck.

“Too loose,” Ren says, exhaling with an odd cough and then actually reaching out to pluck at the loose fabric with an offended expression. “Wouldn’t be a problem if they had the _right_ size in stock.”

“Our deepest apologies, sir,” the attendant interjects, voice barely a squeak from a few feet back. “We can easily take his measurements and have it ready in – ”

“Fine,” Ren interrupts, the boorish ass that he is, and pulls out his phone as if he actually has some sort of schedule to keep; it’s more likely he doesn’t want to have to actually look at the attendant.

“Yes, sir,” the attendant says, still smiling and clearly used to being treated like dirt. “I’ll go get the tailor.”

Hux’s hand stills from where it’s been fiddling with the neck clasp, glancing over to narrow his eyes at Ren, “I cannot believe you.”

Ren raises an eyebrow, looking up from his phone just as his lips begin to curl over his teeth. Somehow, he seems to have caught on to what he’s being scolded for right away – either that or Hux has missed something else.

“This is because of the ad,” Hux says, crossing his arms over his chest and begrudgingly appreciating the manner the coat curls around him down to his thighs. “You do realize you can’t bribe me into giving it over?”

“Yeah,” Ren says, and the tightness around his jaw relaxes as he shucks Hux’s hoodie further up his arm, settling his mouth into a haughty smirk. “Sure.”

Hux narrows his eyes slowly, and can already feel the tension spreading from his neck and down into his shoulders; what else is Ren hiding? He leans in closer, lowering his voice, “You’ll not be replacing my entire closet with overpriced outfits just because you think yourself some fashion authority.”

“Obviously,” Ren says, lips pressed together in an almost insulting attempt to hide a smirk, eye-contact only breaking when the attendant comes back with a politely blank-faced colleague.

The fitting is much shorter than Hux anticipated it being, even if he does have to suffer a few unwarranted compliments to his figure as measurement tape is held across arbitrary parts of his body and marked out on the coat with pins. He can only imagine how much more awkward it would be if they had to go below the hips, with how their clinical hands across his shoulders makes his skin crawl like he's been covered in ants. It reminds him too much of procedures better left forgotten.

“Not a big difference,” the tailor says, gently pulling at the coat to draw it off of Hux’s shoulders. “You can leave your address and it’ll be ready next week, or have it moved to the top of the pile for a small fee and have it ready tomorrow.”

“Thank you,” Hux says, feeling irritation coil at the back of his mind when Ren grunts as if to respond, sprawled out on a guest chair and embroiled in something on his phone. “I think he’ll pay that fee – won’t you, Ren?”

Ren shrugs, mouth tightening and then abruptly relaxing. He is very clearly not listening – he'd probably agree to being drawn and quartered.

“Generous,” the tailor says, barely looking up as they nod shortly and turn on their heel, disappearing through the fitting room door; their apathy is downright admirable.

“Get up,” Hux says, kicking at Ren’s shin and sneering back when it earns a petulant scowl. “What are you even doing?”

“Chrono Trigger,” Ren says, giving a short stretch of his shoulders as he rises from the chair. He tips his phone forward until the display flips and Hux is treated to a screen full of sprites. “I never finished it as a kid.”

“Fascinating,” Hux says, coming very close to sighing and instead gesturing with his chin toward the front. “Give your card to the poor soul up front so we can leave.”

Ren glances around the small closet of a room, eyes darting at all corners, then looks back to Hux with a pinched frown. “Are they already done?”

“I don't know, Ren,” Hux says, raising an eyebrow and leaning back on his heels. “Are they? You've been sitting there the entire time.”

It's not until Hux is loitering in front of a display of over-priced jumpers, listening to Ren pay with half an ear, that he realizes he never actually looked at anything else, not even at the other coats where his size surely would've been lurking in another design. They could have definitely gone to another boutique – there had to be at least three others just along this street.

He hums low and turns to ask, or accuse, only to become distracted as he catches sight of a familiar jumper, black with an odd skull-like print. He reaches out and plucks the arm of it, suddenly swallowing back bitterness and not quite sure why – he shoved the one he found into the back of his closet the day after the Xtralife stream. The knit of this one is slightly different, less well-worn, but Hux could have his own now, one that… He pulls his hand back; he doesn't need another jumper.

“You can't have that one.”

Hux spends another moment staring at it before he turns, narrowing an eye at Ren, “And why?”

“I already have it,” Ren says, his tone going flat with condescension, only to abruptly diminish into sullenness. “I misplaced it… but when I find it, I don’t think you’ll want to match.”

Hux reaches back out and pointedly flips the price-tag, eyes widening at the _$795_ in lovely golden font – he has definitely committed a felony. Outwardly, he thinks he does a very convincing disappointed scowl, turning back to Ren, “You lost a jumper that cost more than an iPad Pro.”

“It just fell in the closet,” Ren says, sounding astonishingly confident about something that is certainly a lie.

“Excuse me, sirs,” the attendant interjects, voice pitched modestly and clearly trying to be as polite as possible in their interruption. “We only need one more thing.”

“What?” Ren says, glancing down at them with his mouth curling into a churlish scowl. “I already paid.”

The attendant smiles, with a vaguely manic, service-sector cheer that betrays just how much they'd like to strangle Ren. “Apologies, sir, but I neglected to ask your phone number for pickup tomorrow.”

“If I may,” Hux says, swallowing back his frustration at Ren being such an ill-mannered brute and reaching for his own wallet. He unfolds it and finds a rarely-used folio, pulling out a card. “Take my number. I would prefer if you called me.”

“A business card?” Ren says, eyebrows raising high on his forehead. His gaze actually follows the movement of Hux’s hand, as if he legitimately cannot believe his eyes. “Are we secretly accountants?”

“Of course,” the attendant says, glancing down to the card and smile relaxing to something more genuinely pleasant. “Your garment should be done by evening tomorrow, Mr. Hux.”

“Thank you,” Hux says, reaching without looking to press a hand to the center of Ren’s chest, shoving him backward toward the door; it seems to be unexpected enough that Ren actually stumbles, which is incredibly satisfying to hear, even if Hux is robbed of the chance to watch. “I look forward to wearing it.”

Ren is visibly irritated when Hux turns around, mouth twisted in a petulant frown and eyes set in a dark glare. He seems to have decided to sulk rather than try anything more overt, and his sullen shadow practically carries its own weight as he follows Hux to the sunny sidewalk outside the storefront.

“You’re such an ass,” Hux says, snatching his hoodie from Ren’s tightly crossed arms and pulling it over his head. It doesn’t seem nearly as bolstering as before, and the only thing he can conclude is that he’s already attached to the coat, like a toddler with a new blanket – how infuriating. “Did your politician mother neglect to teach you basic social skills?”

“My mother doesn’t have that sort of time,” Ren says, a particularly irked sneer crossing his lips. “Pretty sure running the country comes before _manners_.”

“Well, then you surely had a lovely nanny who tried,” Hux says, inwardly cringing and wondering how fast he can dig out of this hole. He is not particularly ready to have the ‘clearly raised by electronics’ conversation, but he seems to have accidentally ran right for it.

“Not really,” Ren says, the tense line of his shoulders rolling backward. He huffs under his breath, tilting his head to look at Hux, “Kind of got stuck with more ex-Marines as I got older.”

“I can’t fathom why,” Hux says, rolling his eyes in turn and then frowning when Ren walks right past the car. Is this some sort of odd reprisal for the comments? “Where are you going?”

Ren shrugs like he has no clue what Hux is on about, shoving both hands in his pockets and continuing to stomp down the sidewalk. He stops his march only a few more storefronts down, in front of an apparent themed café with a facade adorned in plaques and a sign that is a clear imitation of something downright ‘revolutionary’. It seems to be trying to straddle a line between historical accuracy and modern convenience.

“They make their own syrup,” Ren says, pulling a hand from his pocket and gesturing downward at the corner of the windowed storefront. “Cinnamon is the best one, but caramel is okay.”

Hux glances down at the small, elaborate advertisement, “You’ve drank them straight, haven’t you?”

“So?” Ren says, shoving open the door with one hand. “I can do what the fuck I want after I buy them.”

He pauses awkwardly as the door falls closed behind them with a dull clank, taking a short breath. The opposing wall of the café is artfully done in repurposed brick and mortar, and absolutely _pasted_ in antique anti-British propaganda from various eighteenth and nineteenth century wars. “I forgot about that.”

“It was literally hundreds of years ago,” Hux says, pressing his lips together to keep from showing any reaction to the seemingly honest note of trepidation in Ren’s voice. “Unless you’re planning a reenactment.”

Ren declines to respond for a few moments, though obediently follows when Hux steps toward the back of a long queue to the register. He hums low, “You do invade my apartment.”

“Get your lock fixed,” Hux says, glancing sideways and raising an eyebrow just in time to catch Ren roll his eyes. “I’m actually quite serious. I don’t know how you can feel safe in bed at night.”

Ren sighs heavily, fidgeting bizarrely with a closed fist at his side before stepping in a little to close for public propriety. “Didn’t seem like you minded.”

Hux glances quickly to the patrons in front of them, modesty insisting he check for listeners before he allow even the tiniest thread of relief to wind through his mind. The ill-disguised innuendo is almost exactly what he expected from the call hours ago, and that relief is mildly superseded by the usual frustration at Ren’s entire lack of situational awareness. He nearly gives into the petty urge to take a small step back and grind his heel into Ren’s foot, but he’s wearing trainers and Ren is wearing his obnoxious boots, so it would probably lead to nothing more than surprise.

Admittedly, Ren has now shown him to an overpriced sit-down café, so perhaps even the crap apology and the coat were all part of some sort of _gesture_. If this is some attempt at a date, then it certainly triumphs as the most ham-fisted of a lifetime.

Hux tips his head, stepping further in the queue to the front and ignoring the warm presence of a hand coming very close to landing his hip. “Do you think that attempt at humor will work when your entire setup has been stolen?”

“Maybe,” Ren says, voice lowering as he uses his minuscule advantage in height to crowd Hux in, “Would you make me feel better?”

“I must admit,” Hux says, looking sidelong and catching Ren’s eye, then narrowing his own with a smirk. “You're a little heavy-handed, but I’m not completely averse to it.”

Ren looks absolutely delighted, as much as he ever does, but not nearly smug enough for Hux to feel like he should to take it back. It never seemed like Ren left a trail of broken hearts behind him, being entirely too hermit-like by half, but Hux has really only known him for a few months.

Kylo wore a mask, which… makes it even less likely. Or maybe more, depending on the crowd.

“What?” Ren says, drawing back a half-pace as the line moves forward.

“Trying to imagine what sort of escapades Kylo must get up to,” Hux says, smirking over to Ren, then pointedly allowing his lips to fall into a frown and narrowing his eyes. “ _Got_ up to.”

Ren blinks and slightly furrows his brow, as if under some impression that Hux is speaking in an odd riddle, but his complexion becomes downright ruddy only a few moments later. “I’ve… never. In the mask.”

“Even snubbing social media, you had to read _some_ of those obscene YouTube comments about the vocoder,” Hux says, eagerly taking the upper hand as it’s practically presented to him, wrapped in a great big black and silver bow. “All the tweets people send… You’ve really never taken anyone up on it?”

“No,” Ren says, scoffing a few times under his breath like he’s trying to laugh, but just cannot bring himself to it. “ _No_.”

Hux hums, feigning curiosity and wondering how long he can draw this out, only to reluctantly realize that he might not be entirely pretending to consider it – Ren’s own fault really, having only a mask as a face for years. “Shame.”

“It really isn’t,” Ren says, tilting his head down and staring at the floor, nearly braining himself on Hux’s shoulder. He’s clearly begun thinking about it, too, which is something of a consolation.

“Hello, what can I – I,” the barista falls unexpectedly silent, staring at Hux with a frozen, downright dismayed expression. Their eyes snap to Ren, then abruptly back to Hux, “Oh. Oh no.”

“I’d like a macchiato for here,” Hux says, choosing to ignore the reaction and glancing up to the menu board. He has some idea what is going on – Mitaka had acted nearly the exact same. “No syrup.”

Ren makes a quiet, disgusted noise, and it could easily be at either the barista or the order. 

“He will have a cinnamon mocha,” Hux says, growing impatient when Ren takes entirely too long staring at the glass case of sweets and barely sparing a glance at the menu board.

“And one of those small cakes,” Ren says quickly, eyes darting to Hux and mouth sliding sideways into a smirk, “ _Ginger_ bread.”

Hux very nearly sighs, actively questioning when his standards got so low, and looks back to the front. He must be truly desperate to find himself even slightly taken with Ren.

“Right,” the barista nods, head bobbing entirely too many times for normal. “Anything else, sir?”

Hux raises an eyebrow, watching the barista’s skittering gaze twitch between him and the small vanity notepad being used as an order book. “Would you like some kind of… endorsement?”

“A selfie?” The barista practically squeaks, looking up from their pen with wide eyes and face visibly flushing, “With both of you?”

Hux glances to Ren, who grimaces slightly even as he gives a shallow shrug.

“That should be fine,” Hux says, turning back to the barista and putting on his strictest service-smile. “You may get it when you deliver our drinks. I don’t want to hold up the line.”

“Thank you!” The barista says, their excitement obvious from their pitchy voice to their trembling fingers as they swipe Hux’s card.

“You think my viewers are fanatical?” Ren says, leaning in close to Hux’s ear, voice low and spiteful, and nothing like the earlier coyness, as they turn to find a seat at the back of the café. “Yours are in love with you. And they like it when you’re _mean_.”

“That is an exaggeration,” Hux says, sliding into the booth that faces nearest the park window. “They’re simply politely impassioned. Your fanbase could learn something.”

“Nearly had a heart attack the moment they saw you,” Ren says, slumping into the other side with an audible knock of his knees against the underside of the table. “Like you were going to judge them unworthy or something.”

“At least they didn’t have a fit in twenty-story high lift,” Hux says, raising an eyebrow and setting his mouth into a frown. The barista had seemed less concerned about judgment and more about preparedness, because they were a normal human being who didn’t expect people they only see on a screen to suddenly be in their workplace. Ren, on the other hand… “Or lead some sort of bizarre double-life for six months thereafter.”

Ren rolls his eyes, a short twist forming at his mouth. He stays silent for a telling few moments, then scoffs, audibly kicking at the wall under the table, “It wasn’t a _fit_.”

“Admittedly, no, not by your standards,” Hux says, glancing up as he catches the barista duck under the counter partition and begin to make their way over with a pair of brightly painted mugs and a precariously stacked plate.

The barista takes their time, visibly anxious even by their gait, and sets the stack down with a slight trembling of hands, ceramic clinking against itself, “Hi… Uh, here is your mocha and mac-macchiato. Sir.”

“The picture is still fine,” Hux says, gesturing at a pocket at their front and hoping it doesn’t seem too odd. His experience with viewer encounters is mostly Mitaka and BlizzCon, and he hasn’t been to BlizzCon in two years.

“O-okay,” the barista says, fumbling out their phone and nearly dropping it into a mug. “It’s good you sat at a two-seater... Oh, is that – Can you still play?”

Hux blinks at them, absolutely befuddled until he follows their line of sight and sees that they’re staring blatantly at Ren’s wrapped hand. Impolite.

Ren curls the hand until it’s mostly hidden by the crook of his opposite elbow, turning attention to the cake as if systematically crumbling it will hide his unease. “It’s fine.”

“Unforeseen complications,” the barista says, glancing back to Hux as they repeat the words from this morning’s stream. “That sucks.”

Hux exhales, glancing sideways and trying to catch Ren’s eye, failing, “Yes.”

“I’ll just do this, and uh…” the barista says, and looks back to the front counter where a coworker is blatantly glaring their way. “Shit.”

“Do you want... Or not,” Hux trails off, forgetting he was going to offer the uninjured of Ren’s too-long limbs when the barista crouches at the head of the table and holds up the camera with a small grin. The visible display of the phone shows they’ve somehow managed to neatly get all three of them in frame.

“Don’t worry about smiling,” the barista says, then tips their head and clicks the artificial shutter twice in succession with barely a warning.

Hux relaxes and glances sideways in time to hear a low grumble, watching as Ren’s eyes roll to the window. He buries the impulse to roll his in return, instead sitting back in the booth and returning attention to to the barista, who still has their phone clutched in one hand.

“I didn’t expect you guys to be so big,” the barista says, laughing nervously and looking at Hux, then more significantly at Ren. “Thank you so much for the picture! C-can I tweet it?”

“You may,” Hux says, nodding shortly and pulling his own phone out of his pocket, “I will probably even retweet it.”

The barista practically gasps, then curls lips over their teeth to hold back a grin, voice lowering to nearly a whisper, “Thank you.”

They begin another round of making sure the order is fine, a much more rehearsed concern than asking for a picture, and turn on their heel as they start pressing commands into their phone with one hand. Mercifully, they seem to be satisfied with the encounter despite Hux’s standoffishness, which is a welcome indicator that he’s attracting the right sort of viewership.

“You’re not actually a king, remember?” Ren grumbles, now holding his mug with both hands and practically turning it into a miniature.

“Obviously not,” Hux says, tipping his head with a slight smirk and lifting his own drink. “I’m a General.”

Ren gives him a narrow look. “You’re so fucking full of it.”

“Jealous,” Hux murmurs, grabbing his phone and waiting until he sees the barista stash theirs away before refreshing his feed. He finds the tweet fairly quickly, being the one with the only image of both Ren and him currently in existence, and retweets it just as promised. The picture will probably be on every vaguely fan-like page to feature Kylo or him in only a few minutes, and honestly it feels like a smart bit of advert.

He won’t tell Ren that, of course, but he might tell Phasma.

 **[2fast2curious]** crashed @general_hux and @kylo ‘s date, but they let me take a picture :D

“Our date?” Ren says, now looking down at his own phone, the oversize device looking small in his hands, and lips slowly twisting into a patent scowl.

Hux suffers a sudden tightness at the center of his chest – has Ren rescinded his interest not five minutes after whispering innuendo in Hux’s ear? “Yes?”

Ren glances up, scowl slackening and eyes going slightly wide, “No?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Hux repeats more emphatically, realizing with some relief that Ren doesn’t seem opposed to the idea of a date so much as anxious that he’s now supposed to be one. He even has his hands clutched around the top of his mug, frozen and white-knuckled, and Hux has a slightly appalling urge to see if he could break it.

“It’s not a date,” Ren says, his tone a stilted, tense attempt at forceful.

“Do you not go on dates, Ren?” Hux asks, raising an eyebrow and firmly shoving back the wave of hypocrisy. His own dates over the last few years have been little more than preludes to sex and a mutual decision never to see each other again, but he doubts he can suddenly summon the fortitude to hash that out with Ren. He doesn't particularly want to, not to mention the fact Ren would make him do it twice: once with him, and once with _Kylo_.

Ren rolls his eyes, avoiding Hux’s face and curling his lips over his teeth for a short moment.  “I just – I could use my mother’s name to get us in any restaurant in the city.”

“Ah,” Hux intones, feeling his brows raise entirely of their own accord. Ren hardly seems to be the type to stress about proper courtship, seems even less so now after having experienced what Ren seems to think is sane behavior: destruction of property, blood, and a _complete avoidance_ of declaring interest. It’s odd that he’d want something so dreadfully… formal.

Ren remains quiet for a long moment, then exhales heavily and turns his head to stare out the window. His lips are turned down into a visible pout, setting off his profile against the afternoon sun.

Hux sighs, “I would prefer Thai. Or Indian.”

Ren quickly turns his sullen gaze back to Hux, narrowing his eyes and determined to be confused in the face of the obvious – try to give the man a mile, and he stubbornly stands still.

“If you’re taking suggestions for your little fantasy where either of us are particularly inclined to sit-down restaurants,” Hux says, turning his hand outward with a cyclical gesture, and trying to pointedly encompass the mood of the café. “Excepting the ones that serve coffee and biscuits, apparently.”

“It isn’t…” Ren mutters, rolling his shoulders and letting go of the mug to curl his fingers tight around the edge of the table. Hopefully, he doesn’t try to do anything too dramatic – a shattered mug would be nothing compared to an overturned table. “You’re not a fucking Tinder hookup. It should be better.”

Hux stares for a short moment, shoving down a disgusting well of pleasure that threatens to spill up from his chest and out across his face. He knows Ren is often too dramatic by half, but he never expected it to come off so vaguely endearing.

“Last night, for dinner, I had half a box of Triscuits,” Hux says, feeling a bit like he’s confessing some sort of sin. “I’m almost certain all you had was the rest of those biscuits.”

“Vanilla Oreos,” Ren mutters, smacking his lips slightly, almost as if he’s reliving memory of the cheap sweet. “And a protein shake.”

“Making this already terribly excessive compared to our usual fare, even if you’re still gobbling sweets,” Hux says, gesturing at the half-eaten cake as he leans against the table and settles his knuckles against his chin. “Consequently, a _date_.”

“It should just be…” Ren trails off, shrugging his shoulders and posture downright wilting even as he keeps his unrelenting stare aimed straight at Hux. “I didn’t even ask.”

“Nor did I,” Hux says, turning his mug a few times on the tabletop with his free hand. He startles slightly when his phone buzzes, the front lighting up with a text, only to receive a second in the next moment. He leans forward to stare at it in bafflement, and nearly collides with a rudely curious Ren.

_‘R u okay ur not at the store?!?’ >>_

_‘Fanboy is sad‘ >>_

“Dameron… _Resistance_ Dameron?” Ren says, eyes narrowing at the screen and a markedly tight tic appearing at the corner of his jaw. “He checks up on you?”

“No,” Hux says, grabbing his phone off the table and scowling down at it. If Dameron manages to ruin whatever shaky, awkward thing that he has going on right now with Ren, then Hux is going to finish what he started years ago and legitimately maim the man.

_< <‘I’m fine.’ _

_‘R u sure cause ur breaking an established pattern of behavior’ >>_

_< <‘I wasn’t aware you finished that psychology degree. Congratulations.’_

_‘: (‘ >>_

“How do you even know him?”

“We were reluctant flatmates before I started streaming full-time,” Hux says, glancing up with a raised eyebrow from his phone and turning it _facedown_ on the table. “Did your stalking not go that in-depth? I can see now why you never read about the crash.”

“I’ve read about the crash now,” Ren says, slumping down in his chair. He taps at the screen of his own phone, and slides open to a browser with a clear intent, “May 1998, survivors stuck for two hours. Twelve people – “

“I’d rather not hear it,” Hux snaps, ignoring the abrupt stab of claws trying to circle around his lungs. He focuses the stress into being irritated at Ren – long practice making it easy. “Tact, Organa.”

Ren rolls his eyes, seemingly petulant at the fact that Hux might be uneager to talk about that time he nearly _died_. He taps the surface of the table for a few moments, four fingers sounding an uneven beat, “Rey Skywalker.”

“Finn Dameron,” Hux says, raising an eyebrow and a little perplexed at the sudden turn of topic. “Are we naming members of the Resistance? It will be a very short game. I think all that’s left is the dog.”

“ _Rey_ is my little cousin,” Ren says, rolling his eyes to the side and lifting a hand to poke at his own shoulder.

Hux blames willful disbelief for the amount of time it takes him to realize what Ren is implying, “Are you saying Poe Dameron knew who you were? This whole time.”

“I only met him once,” Ren says, slumping back into his chair with a stilted shrug. He taps at his drink with his fingers, voice lowering, “I don’t remember much, he was a little… Too friendly. He did that thing where he grabbed my bicep when he shook my hand.”

“The man is just obnoxiously good-natured,” Hux says, and remembers, somewhat nostalgically, the first time he managed to make Dameron truly angry. It had felt exactly the same as unlocking a particularly trying achievement: frustrating in the interim, but ultimately rewarding. “Unless you pretend to have gotten rid of his little dog.”

Ren stares for a long moment, brow slowly raising and seemingly speechless, which tallies the profits of the Beebee incident up to a satisfying two.

“I had only taken it to the groomer,” Hux says, taking pity on Ren’s mild horror. The creature itself seemed rather delighted afterward, having had a little roll in the mud and a subsequent bath. “But, oh, was he _furious_.”

“You're so fucked up,” Ren says, lifting his hands for a short moment, as if to gesture, before simply letting them fall to the table with a short thud. “Holy fuck, that's just… Did he cry?”

“In a way,” Hux says, remembering the incident with almost perfect clarity. Dameron had revealed himself to be the vengeance first, mourning later type. “He mostly tried to strangle me with a braided leash.”

Ren nods slowly, running a hand over his face and down his chin with clearly lingering disbelief. “I don’t know if Rey ever told Finn about me being Kylo, or if he told Dameron.”

Hux hums, glancing down at his phone for a long, contemplative moment that threatens to turn to anger. He will be livid if it turns out that Dameron had known and then didn’t tell him, but it also seems like the sort of thing where Dameron would have taken a sort of dreadful pity on Hux and told him the week that Ren had moved in. He’s got an absolutely bizarre system regarding secret-keeping that involves some sort of ratio of amusement to hurt feelings.

“So,” Hux says, turning his phone over and discovering no subsequent texts from Dameron. He will ask later, the next time Dameron initiates contact. “You’re the crazy cousin.”

Ren narrows his eyes, lips settling into a tight frown, “Is that what Dameron calls me?”

Hux rolls his eyes, staring at the beamed ceiling for a moment, then exhaling and looking back to Ren. “Skywalker often tells stories about her cousin – the crazy is heavily implied. It’s practically a running bit in their _Game Over_ videos.”

“She does _what_?”

“For instance, last week _you_ apparently called her in the middle of the night to ask her if she knew where to buy fireworks, specifically white ones,” Hux says, remembering the odd story, and a few others, with a new sense of understanding. He feels a bit stupid for not realizing it before, especially the story about the cousin moving, destroying his kitchen, Dameron actually _mentioning_ Hux, having occurred around the same time that Ren moved in. “Do you not watch their content?”

“No,” Ren says, mouth turning down into an almost spiteful scowl. “Why would I? I don’t like any of them.”

“It takes only a few minutes a day to parse out the methodology of the competition,” Hux says, feeling something like honest amusement settle in the center of his chest when Ren’s angry expression fades into something more bemused, staring like Hux has grown a second head. “You should seriously think about it. Phasma handles the Republic, but I'm sure we could find something for you.”

“We have entirely different audiences.”

“For now,” Hux says, grabbing his macchiato off the table and gesturing with the half-empty mug. “Additionally, I don’t trust you at all with fireworks. If I find any in your apartment, they will be disposed of.”

“I can hide them,” Ren says, a mean sneer appearing for an instant on his face before devolving into a petulant frown. “She didn’t either… Threatened to tell my mother.”

“Shocking,” Hux says, taking a long sip of his coffee. He blinks as the phone buzzes under his other hand, and sighs heavily, debating a few seconds before flipping it over. It might be – No, it’s not Phasma.

 _‘You’re srsly f king him I cnt blv u wouldn’t tell me’_ >>

 _‘Did u kno his scret identity b4 xtralife????’_ >>

_‘First Rey now u’ >>_

‘ _Wht hppend 2 r BOND cmon’_ >>

Hux raises an eyebrow, sliding open the phone to the message app and ignoring his own relief that Dameron, as if Hux should care, hadn’t been keeping this secret for months.

<< _’Did you get drunk in the last five minutes?’_

 _‘I got DISAPPNTED’_ >>

<< _’Your acquaintance means less than dirt to me’_

 _‘Brb sobbing’_ >>

 _‘;) ;) ;) but no gjob he def a big boy’_ >>

“Is that – are you blushing,” Ren says, his voice barely above a low hiss, “At Dameron?”

“I don’t rightly know, but I don’t appreciate the play at possessive,” Hux says, hastily dodging the question, maybe lying a little, and shoving his phone in his hoodie pocket. He’s now determined to ignore Dameron for the rest of… forever, at this point. Again. He catches Ren’s eyes, narrowing his own, “I haven’t even agreed to your elaborate date affair, yet you think to control who I talk to?”

Ren stares back, expression frozen for a moment before his mouth curls down into a small, sullen frown. “You’re mocking me.”

Hux allows a quick smirk to cross his face, “Slightly.”

“You just – ” Ren pauses with an angry exhale, gesturing quickly at absolutely nothing and maintaining a downright incensed scowl. “You act like your standards are high as fuck, but now you're alright with a date that costs less than McDonald's. It doesn't make sense.”

“It's truly astonishing that you can be so constantly melodramatic, yet not recognize it in other people,” Hux says, lifting a hand and pinching the bridge of his nose for a spare moment. He shouldn’t say anything else, but Ren really does have nice arms, and Hux would very much like to touch them, so he leans just slightly in and lowers his voice, “And before you try to continue this row, you should know that I have an unashamed history of shagging first dates, a tradition I'd like to keep quite alive if it's all the same, so I'd like you to think about how that can be today, or whenever it is you plan have on getting your act together. Likely never.”

Ren lifts his eyes from their intense stare at the table to look at Hux, eyebrows furrowing slowly in obvious disbelief. “Bull _shit_. Yesterday was the first time I’d seen you leave on a day that wasn’t a Tuesday.”

“I didn’t say I went out a lot, you ass,” Hux says, shifting his hand and curling it over the back of his neck, absently pulling his hoodie up and then firmly scolding himself for it. Admittedly, he hasn't gone out in a very long while, but Ren doesn't need to know.

Ren huffs under his breath, picking at the last piece of his cake and then shoving the entire thing into his mouth. “Fine.”

Hux curls his mouth into a grimace, wishing Ren had at least finished chewing, “Fine?”

“I mean, if you’re apparently that easy…”

“Are you really going to be difficult about that now?” Hux says, sharpening his tone and completely tired of Ren trying to cast him in some sort of infuriating mold.

Ren shrugs, toying with his empty mug and eyes flitting up with marked caginess, and the sudden hesitation looks odd on a man of his usual bluster. “Is that what – I mean, all you wanted?”

“No,” Hux says with a short exhale, throwing away the perfect opportunity to draw this out as apt payback for the hour or so that _he’d_ been distraught after Ren had acted like he got a taste and decided it was more than enough. He’s already dealt enough this week with how bad Ren is at compartmentalizing in comparison. “Stop holding everything up to some arbitrary metric regarding how much I might… judge you as a potential partner. In the long term.”

“Boyfriend,” Ren says, speaking so slowly he may as well be drawling, and then raising an eyebrow. “We are already partners. In the long term.”

“I am not seventeen,” Hux says, rolling his eyes toward the window and gesturing dismissively. “I will not use that word.”

“Are you sure it's not just because you’re a huge sluuh – _F-fuck.”_

“Finish that,” Hux interrupts, pressing his fingers harder into the wrapped knuckles that he knows to be full of stitches, and enjoying the way Ren’s curses halt with a pained choke. “And I'll gladly fulfill that little accusation by finding a better prospect and making sure you _hear_ it.”

~

The drive back to the building and the walk across the lobby are probably the tensest that Hux has experienced, but hold nothing to when they settle into the lift, not so much standing as provoking each other – Hux with his hands spread out behind him on the rail of one side, and Ren leaning on the other with his arms crossed. Hux is pretending not to stare; Ren is about as subtle as a brick to a windscreen.

“We’re going to yours,” Ren announces, just as the lift starts its far too long ascent.

Hux sighs, forcing his mouth into a thin line, “I’m not certain I agree with that.”

“Mine has a broke lock.”

Hux raises his eyebrows, glancing away from where he’s been determinedly watching the slowly climbing numbers above the door. “How convenient that you choose now to start to care.”

Ren shrugs, “I’d hate for that murderer to come back while I was fucking you over the couch.”

“You are a truly vulgar creature,” Hux says, rolling his eyes and willing his damned mind not to imagine the horrifying scenario. The only thing worse than being murdered would be having his body officially recorded and reported to public record as mid-coitus. He tortured soul would undoubtedly end up in some poltergeist scenario, only satiated by the ability to kill Ren twice over for the humiliation. 

“I think you’re into it,” Ren says, somehow managing to move closer without jolting the lift car overmuch, or maybe Hux has finally figured a way to ignore it. “Straight out said you didn’t want the good guy act.”

“Dear lord,” Hux says dryly, literally biting back a smirk by scraping his teeth across the inside of his lip. “You’re hardly capable of such a thing.”

“Doesn’t matter now,” Ren says, shoving in closer and hooking two fingers into the side of Hux’s hoodie pocket.

Hux tentatively tips his head up when Ren goes in for his neck, and feels an unexpectedly delicate, hesitant kiss along his throat, only to be distracted by the sight of a pyramid-like shape in the corner with a shiny black eye. He blinks, actually feeling his mind clambering to understand in the split second before ignorance and horrified realization.

“Could you watch your bloody manners in the lift?” Hux says, shoving Ren away and feeling abruptly hyperaware, though he allows himself the weakness of keeping his hand on the center of Ren’s broad chest. “I’d rather not have the security gossiping about us any more than they already do.”

Ren glances down at Hux’s hand and frowns, “What is that supposed to mean?”

Hux rolls his eyes, gesturing with his chin over his shoulder, “Surveillance.”

“Since when?” Ren says, peering upward with a petulant frown twisting at his lips. “Lando put those in?”

“I don’t know who that is, but the HOA made it quite clear,” Hux says, crossing his arms and forcing Ren another half-step backward. “If you bothered to read your mail.”

Ren glares upward at the cameras, silent for an entire four floors, “I am literally being spied on.”

“Yes,” Hux agrees, glancing up to the corner cam and feeling his mouth turn down into a scowl. It’s not an odd way to put it, but he’s a little surprised that Ren would say it almost like it’s personal. “It is quite the loss of freedom.”

Ren leans in close again, though he doesn’t seem to be aiming for anything too lascivious even as he lowers his voice, “Probably should have thought about this before murdering your neighbor.”

“ _Ren_ ,” Hux says, curling his lips over his teeth for a spare second to keep from letting through even a smirk, and narrowing his eyes with a weak attempt at exasperation, “If you get me arrested, I'm going to be furious.”

The lift slows to a premature stop, doors opening with a slow swish of steel, and Hux glances out to see a neighbor waiting with a bag clutched at their side. They shift on their feet and look up as they step forward, only to abruptly stop with a short inhale, their eyes landing squarely Hux and then darting down to the floor, “I’ll uh, take the next one.”

Hux is so taken aback that the door actually closes before he forms a single thought in response. He glances sideways to see if perhaps – no, Ren is still close, but not _too_ close, so it’s doubtful they gathered what was going on in the space of a second.

“We are… six floors above them,” Hux says, narrowing his eyes at the number above the door and wondering if it might be displaying wrong. “They cannot possibly have complaints.”

“Saw you all bothered, probably,” Ren says, leaning back against the railing just next to Hux with a low huff.

“I’m not _bothered_ ,” Hux says, but he doesn’t shove Ren away again, even when a hand palms clumsily at his hip just as the lift arrives on their floor.

Hux debates a moment as he approaches his door, entertaining the idea that it might be amusing to overstep Ren’s little declaration, but then realizes Ren probably hasn’t cleaned up his bathroom. He probably had only just gotten up when he Skyped Hux about going across town for his little shopping trip, so, in the end, he simply slides the key in the lock and hopes Ren won’t decide to make an example of it.

He blinks in confusion when he hears a soft noise behind him, followed by the undeniable sound of cloth piling onto the ground. He turns around and near swallows his tongue at the sight of Ren now standing there with his shirt and imitation-of-a-jacket gone to a messy pile right in front of the kitchen entry, and has to tear his eyes eyes up from the sight of that remarkable valley that goes straight from Ren’s neck to his waistband.

“What?” Ren says, rolling his shoulders and running a hand through his hair. He looks a little awkward, but it’s doubtful that any of the feeling is from regret. “You started it. At the café.”

“You have a very odd interpretation of starting it,” Hux says, tutting low and hoping he doesn’t seem too obviously distracted at the sight of Ren’s bare… everything. Ren is entirely too comfortable being half-naked for a man who wears so many layers. “Are you confused because there’s no A button?”

Ren rolls his eyes, scoffing under his breath, “I dare you to find a dating SIM with controller support.”

“You have just explained so much about today,” Hux says, adjusting a few assumptions in his mind that’s still add up to Ren being absolutely inept at human interaction. 

“You’re the arrogant type,” Ren says, his voice lowering into something more condescending, as if he has any room to talk. He leans in a little too close, his shoulders noticeably warm, “I should know, the viewers always want me to fuck them.”

“I was serious about the vocoder, you know,” Hux says, choosing only to shed his hoodie rather than the whole kit. He’s already planning to drag Ren into the actual bedroom before anything really starts, but he’s not going to disagree with a little premature stripping on the other end. “Later, obviously.”

Ren blinks, leaning back and reaching up to scratch awkwardly at his shoulder, “What?”

“I let you buy me that coat,” Hux says, tipping his head to the side with a smirk. He steps backward a few paces, further into the living area and nearer something useful, like the sofa. “It’s really the least you could do to indulge me.”

“Oh,” Ren says, raising his eyebrows and settling his mouth into a mocking sneer. “Oh, you _let_ me buy you a coat that cost two grand?”

“I believe so,” Hux says, affecting a sarcastic tone and huffing under his breath, aiming an accusing gesture at Ren’s front. It gives him an excuse to look a little more. “It took me an embarrassingly long time, but I did eventually realize that you had it already picked out.”

Ren maintains that haughty stare for another moment, almost as if he’s going to deny it, then scoffs and glances away, “I saw it a few months ago. I should have bought it.”

“Ah, but that was before your little secret was revealed,” Hux says, leaning forward and tugging at a stray lock of Ren’s hair, smirking when it makes him grimace. “How would you have given it to me?”

“I don’t know,” Ren mutters, reaching up to curl his large fingers around Hux’s hand, as if that would work to keep him from taunting further. “Mail?”

Hux hums mockingly under his breath, turning his hold under Ren until he has room to slide his fingers up Ren’s warm, firm arm, “And that would not have been weird at all, _Ky_ lo.”

Ren shoves him only barely, but Hux falls to the sofa all the same, a play at sacrificing some of the control to speed Ren up a bit. He won’t ever admit to even idly thinking about this since Ren moved in, when he was simply some unstable, dark haired fellow built like a truck, but he’s not going to deny himself the opportunity to take advantage of quiet fantasy.

“Are you sure you’re not just after this,” Ren says, and even as he he folds himself on top of Hux’s ill-used sofa, looming over and pressing his thumbs against the bare skin of Hux’s neck, he again seems as doubtful as he was back in the café. “You can just say if you're desperate – ”

“Ren, your awful life is already invading my awful life,” Hux interrupts, looping his arms around Ren’s shoulders and trying to force him to unwind. He cannot believe Ren is half-naked, pinning him to a sofa, and still making a fuss about something so inane. “I don’t think the universe is going to rewind a few years because I find traditional dating a tedious cock block, much like you are being right now.”

“You’re really impatient, too,” Ren says, voice little more than a whisper as he hovers only a few inches above Hux’s lips. “But I like that.”

“Must you always run your mouth?” Hux mutters, shifting his hold on the back of Ren’s neck and dragging him down until all this talking is largely impossible.

Ren is a solid weight over Hux’s middle, and he is soon pressing insistently despite the earlier reservation, one hand sliding down Hux’s chest until it teases along the hem of his shirt. Hux groans no little frustration into Ren’s mouth, letting go of Ren’s broad shoulder and coercing Ren’s hand to slip a little further, the span of it a welcome warmth across Hux’s bare ribs.

It seems to make Ren stop at playing delicate, _finally_ , and he shifts the hand still near Hux’s neck until his thumb is stretching out the tight collar of Hux’s shirt. He pulls away from Hux’s mouth a moment later, grazing teeth over his jaw and then – Ah, of course Ren would be fascinated by that particular imperfection.

“Stop it,” Hux says, speaking determinedly through a breathy hitch in his voice. He tightens his fingers around Ren’s tantalizingly solid side, swallowing Ren scrapes his teeth along Hux’s collarbone, “Fetishist.”

“Tattoo,” Ren mutters, though he does move away from the larger part of the scar, further up under Hux’s jaw. “Look good.”

“Absolutely not,” Hux says, threading his other hand up and into Ren’s absolutely unreal hair. He’s going to have more than one reason to cover up his neck tomorrow, since Ren is apparently seventeen – not a huge surprise, considering all the video games. In a twist parallel to Hux's opinion on Ren's immature charm, however, it feels as if he may not have been simply exaggerating this morning about his cock, which is an entirely different sort of frustrating. 

Hux blinks his eyes open only a few moments later, reluctantly slowing his hand as it traces along the enticing jut of Ren's hip. Either he’s going mad, or the rapid tempo of a familiar song is playing somewhere to his left. “…Is that Doom?”

Ren hums low, detaching his lips from Hux’s throat to stare with narrowed eyes... only to stop halfway and inhale so swiftly that he audibly chokes, practically flailing as he rolls off the sofa in sudden haste. He crawls over to his discarded jumper, groping for his phone from where it’d dropped out of a pocket, and then looks to Hux in abject horror. “Oh, fuck me.”

Hux raises an eyebrow, swallowing back the reflex to share in this sudden, baseless panic. “Are you done already?”

“Shut up,” Ren says, fumbling slightly with his injured hand as he answers the call, turning the phone into his ear and slowly standing from his crouch. “Mom, hey, I’m surprised to… No, I’m not keeping secrets.”

It seems Secretary Organa is about as fond of polite greeting as Ren.

“You saw… Your assistant showed you it?” Ren says, rolling his eyes at the phone in an unusually passive show of irritation. He practically paces as he stomps around the couch with an obvious frustration, though if it’s from being interrupted, or who interrupted, Hux can’t yet tell.  “Right. Yeah, that is – Yeah. The neighbor.”

Hux sighs and leans his head back on the arm of the sofa, staring at the ceiling for a few seconds and mourning the slow flag of his erection. Did Ren really have to answer? Hux has been dodging calls from his parents for almost four years; it’s not that hard to just let it ring.

Granted, Hux’s screened calls are less likely to show up at the door.

“No,” Ren says, scoffing hard and lifting a hand to gesture with frustration at the window, perhaps directed at the Capitol building. “No, he doesn’t need to be vetted.”

Hux raises an eyebrow, becoming uneasy despite himself – he doesn’t think that he’s ever done anything particularly noteworthy, but what if he _has_? Ren’s mother could potentially get him kicked out of the entire country.

“I’m _thirty_ ,” Ren says, suddenly speaking very quietly, and very resentfully, into the phone. “So no, I don’t need a stupid refresher.”

“Certainly say ‘no’ to your mother a lot,” Hux mutters, rolling his shoulders as he sits up straight on the sofa. He’s grudgingly thankful that he hadn’t been so eager to get his clothing off as Ren; he’s already feeling a little cold at this point and all he’s missing is his hoodie.

“No, he’s _not_ here,” Ren says, turning to Hux and making an obnoxious quieting gesture that ends with a closed fist. “I’m watching Netflix.”

Hux scoffs under his breath and sneers back, only to feel it wilt as he narrows his eyes with suspicion. Was that... Was that innuendo? Does Ren seriously think his mother wouldn’t understand something so transparent?

“He’s not after my money,” Ren says, hand flexing at his side and a truly aggressive sneer crossing his face. “Not everyone is as _shallow_ as _Dad_.”

Hux feels his mouth drop open, then raises a hand to keep himself from bursting out laughing at the absolute panic that comes over Ren’s face. He’s never seen Ren look so regretful – probably not at the words, but definitely at the fact he’s actually _said_ them.

“Sorry,” Ren says, exhaling heavily and pressing his palm to his forehead. He looks absolutely ridiculous, half-naked and petulant; it’s a shame that it’s happening while talking to his mother. “I said I was _sorry_. I didn’t mean it.”

“Didn’t mean it,” Hux repeats under his breath, a grin curling unbidden across his face when Ren turns to glare at him.

“Shut _up_ ,” Ren mouths, frowning hard and flipping Hux off before turning to the window. His shoulders tense up a few minutes later, then fall, “Fine. Eventually. _Bye_.”

Hux watches as the phone is practically crushed underneath the pressure of Ren’s hanging up, raising an eyebrow. “In trouble with mumsy?”

“Don’t ever say that again,” Ren mutters, throwing his phone to the opposing, nigh unused wingback chair. He still has his other hand pressed to his forehead, fingers curling against the line of his scalp, “ _Fuck_. She hasn’t even called me in two months, you know, and now she thinks she can just police my decisions?”

“Do you need... space?” Hux asks, leaning back and relaxing further into the sofa cushions. He wants to get off, but he doesn’t particularly want to find out if Ren pushing aside a fit now will somehow amplify it later – going to A&E twice in a week would just be embarrassing.

Ren breathes for a few moments longer, then slides his hand up and through his hair. “No.”

The silence stretches further as he stays at his position near the window, jaw ticking and eyes firmly somewhere on the street below. He doesn’t look angry anymore, almost discouraged, like he’s waiting to hear that getting a phone call at an inopportune time was some last straw.  

“Come here, then,” Hux says, exhaling shortly and lifting both hands, curling his fingers inward to gesture for Ren to return to the sofa. “I'm already quite cross that you're thinking about something that's not me.”

Hux hopes the little thrill that crawls up his spine when Ren practically falls to his knees isn’t too obvious, nor the hitch in his breath when hands spread wide across both of his thighs as Ren leans in for a kiss that almost seems to be a statement. It’s not necessarily a better position for Ren, compared to necking on top of him, but it’s certainly not any worse.

~

“So I go back to Sussex for a week, and suddenly everything works itself out.”

“Ren destroyed his bathroom,” Hux says, speaking slowly and glancing sideways to catch the resultant scowl on Ren’s face. “And his hand.”

“Perhaps not Ren so much, but you managed to work out your suffocating sexual tension, started going out again aside from the supermarket, and are now talking to Dameron again?” Phasma says, continuing her little diatribe and obnoxiously counting out the list on her fingers. “I believe I need to go on more holidays.”

“You weren’t talking to Dameron?”

“I started talking to Dameron again weeks ago,” Hux says, gesturing dismissively at Phasma and completely ignoring Ren. He doesn’t feel like getting into the delicate details of his very slight bitterness at Dameron’s perfect little life. “And I didn’t stop going out, I simply stopped… pointlessly going out.”

“That’s not a thing,” Phasma says, crossing her arms and affecting a look of disbelief. “I cannot believe you’re still this salty after getting shagged.”

Ren scoffs, smirking when Hux turns to glare at him. “I can.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2 exists entirely because I felt that leaving it at a sleep-delirious was actually... Well, it was too open-ended. 
> 
> I lost control of this a little, hopefully it hasn't lost what people appreciate so much about the first part.
> 
> (Also, you can't actually get a super cool, black mid-length trench in GTAV, I checked, which is a damned shame. You can get like this sort of wool coat, or a tan trench, but... Rockstar, you failed me.)
> 
> (It's probably obvious, but all that I know about tailoring is what my mom does when making clothes. However, I did look it up to make sure places did tailor in-store.)
> 
> (Everyone in the building now 100% thinks Hux murdered his neighbor. It was only about 85% until the cleaner found a bunch of blood in front of his door on the way to the elevator and started a panicked email chain about it.)

**Author's Note:**

> I doubt this was what anyone wanted, but I wrote like 15k words of it and won't actually _hurt_ me to post it. 
> 
> Also, since everyone else is doing it, tumblr: [Ezlebe](http://ezlebe.tumblr.com).
> 
> (kylo does play the witness, and he gets very, very angry; firewatch just makes him want to cry like ten minutes in) 
> 
> (With bonus fanart by [thewolvesrunwild on Tumblr](http://thewolvesrunwild.tumblr.com/post/144575485272/a-made-up-scene-after-the-first-chapter-of-come-at)


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